PSY: The Rise of a Korean Superstar

PSY: The Rise of a Korean Superstar

            When the music video for Gangnam Style debuted on YouTube, PSY the artist behind the song wasn’t known to anyone outside of South Korea and its neighboring countries. Since its debut Gangnam Style has garnered over 2 billion views making it one of the most played songs in YouTube history. PSY’s global breakout success is still a mystery to people in his home country. Wall Street Journal columnist Jeff Yang’s article “Gangnam Style’s U.S. Popularity has Koreans Puzzled, Gratified” Yang writes that “the unlikely emergence of Park Jae-Song, the chubby, 34-year-old rapper known as PSY, as the face of K-pop, after the explosive success of his rollicking video for “Gangnam Style,” has been greeted by Koreans with a blinking neon “WTF” (blogs.wsj.com). Yet PSY has done something that was still a not yet achievable dream for Korean artist and that was to break out in a market that no Asian artist has had the chance to do. PSY became popular in the American mainstream music industry, and has paved the way for other artist to break out in a similar fashion. As a rap artist PSY has overcome many obstacles especially since he doesn’t fit the mold of what most rap artist in the United States are like. Though he has been able to create his own kind of music that mirrors The Sugar Hill Gang’s Rapper’s Delight in how the music is upbeat or Sir Mix-a-Lot’s Baby Got Back where the beat and melody to the music is more upbeat and fast paced. To be able to understand the powerhouse that PSY has become it’s probably best to start from the beginning when he was Park Jae-sang.

 

            Park Jae-Sang was born on December 31, 1977 in Seoul South Korea, the son of one of Gangnam’s most influential families. Euny Hong’s book, The Birth of Korean Cool, talks about PSY’s roots and family, “His father, Park Won-ho, is chairman of the Korean semiconductor company DI Corp” (24). His mother Kim Yung-hee owns several restaurants in Cheongdam-dong which is the Korean version of Rodeo Drive (travelweekly.com). From such and affluent family someone like PSY would have to follow the traditions of his family and become a business man. For many children from East Asian families being successful in life starts at school, the same can be said for PSY whose parents wanted him to achieve. Hong writes that “getting bad marks at school tantamount to juvenile delinquency. It’s also a direct act of disrespect towards one’s parents, a core violation of Korean society’s ethical system” (25). Park Jae-Sang wasn’t a very good student and in his family of successful entrepreneurs this was a shame on the family. After graduating High School he enrolled in Boston University as well as Berklee College of Music, but he didn’t graduate. In an interview with the New York Times he says he was a “Freshman for four years — class was too early for me” (nytimes.com). At first He studied business administration in order to prepare to join his family’s company, but while there he lost interest and dropped out from Boston University. Later enrolling in Berklee College of Music and learning composing while in school he says of his studies, “At that time I tried to be a composer, not a singer. I cannot learn creation from other people, I’ve got to do it myself. Now, honestly, I regret not studying — I don’t know about harmonies, or anything, so if I’m composing a song, it’s really hard” (nytimes.com).

To his family he was a disappointment because he didn’t have the grades to become what they wanted him to become, but while in the United States he was exposed to the sounds of American Pop culture and this may have been what influenced a part of his sound. Growing up PSY idolized Freddie Mercury, his songwriting skills as well as his showmanship (nytimes.com). While in the United States he was exposed to hip-hop music and gained inspiration from artist such as Tupac, Notorious B.I.G., Dr. Dre, Eminem, and Snoop Dogg. This inspiration as well as those from artist he listened to growing up fueled what would become his musical persona after dropping out of school and returning to South Korea. During this time PSY’s rebellious nature towards his family took a serious turn when he was arrested for possession of marijuana. In America this isn’t as big of a deal towards a twenty four year old aspiring artist but in Korea this would become a life lesson. His grandfather passed away while he was in jail and was distraught at missing the funeral, “It was then that I became an adult” (Hong 27).

Park Jae-Sang created PSY, which is short of psycho and released his first album PSY... from the Psycho World which came out when the internet was becoming easily available. As an artist debuting in his mid-twenties PSY didn’t fit into the mold of young hot artist in Korea, during what was considered the first Hallyu wave, which is when artist from Korea became popular in China and Japan, yet through his music he was able to gain a following. Yet controversy wasn’t far from his life, in South Korea young men have to do mandatory military service once they turn 18 years old where they have five months of training and serve for 21 months afterward. Many artist before 2013 were assigned to the celebrity soldier unit, but after controversies about preferential treatment the unit was dissolved. PSY joined the military in 2003 and was assigned to alternative duties, which weren’t smaller duties and would have been easy to complete but he didn’t finish them. He had to reenlist in 2007 and completed his active duty two years later. Another controversy came from his song Champion from his second album, when it was believed that PSY had used a racial slur in his lyric, “Several fans mistook the Korean phrase "ni ga", which translates to "you" or "you are", for the “N-word” (allkpop.com). Other controversies followed after his rise to worldwide stardom as his past lyrics would become heavily criticized due to their nature, such as the song “Dear Americans” which brought up several abuses by American soldiers during the wars in the Middle East, but a bad translation of the song caused controversy because it was believed that he wanted to Kill Americans. PSY stated that “the song "was part of a deeply emotional reaction to the war in Iraq and the killing of two Korean schoolgirls that was part of the overall anti-war sentiment shared by others around the world at that time.” (cnn.com)

            Success for PSY began to rise faster, he “had been running his own agency and performing as a singer too. However, his agency began to struggle financially. Psy's wife then encouraged him to join YG” (kpopstarz.com). YG Entertainment is one of Korea’s top agencies with popular artist such as BIGBANG and 2ne1 who were gaining success when PSY had signed on. After signing on PSY released his fifth album, two years later he would release his sixth album which would catapult him into international stardom where so many other artist had failed.  Psy 6 (Six Rules), Part 1 was released on July 15, 2012 with “Gangnam Style” as its lead single. The song reached heights in which no artist even in the United States had been able to reach at the time, since its debut only 13 other songs have been able to attempt to reach PSY and his song. “We never thought a video would be watched in numbers greater than a 32-bit integer," YouTube said in a Google+ post, "but that was before we met PSY” (theatlantic.com). The video will reach 2.5 million view in 2016 since its release in 2012. PSY has been able to continue his rise in the overseas markets since 2012 with songs such as “Gentlemen” which has been certified as the most viewed video within its first 24 hours (guinnessworldrecords.com), the song is also close to becoming PSY’s second song to hit 1 Billion views on YouTube.

            As an artist PSY has paved the way for other international artist to be able to debut, he’s used his influence in the international market to bring other South Korean artist into the mainstream American markets. He’s also collaborated with some of the most well-known artist in the music industry, such as Snoop Dogg, Ed Sheeran, and will-i-am. His music videos have become as much of his personality as his lyrics and dance moves. As an artist who debuted at 24 years old he has been able to separate himself from the stereotype that you have to be young to be successful in the music industry. The lyrics he creates brings a different style to rap music, where it doesn’t have to be about directed towards one style of music but can be blended with other styles and can be danced to. This is what makes him different than other rap artists.

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