Breakout Stars Korean Artist, K-Pop, and the American Music Industry

Breakout Stars

Korean Artist, K-Pop, and the American Music Industry

         The emergence of Korean culture in the United States isn’t something that is new. For years artist from South Korea have slowly become a part of American culture, such as Rain a K-Pop and R&B artist who starred in the movie Ninja Assassin and was named one of Time Magazine’s “100 Most Influential People Who Shape Our World.” Bryan Walsh wrote in the 2006 article on Rain that, “Rain is the face — and well-muscled torso — of pop globalism” (time.com). Although Rain didn’t debut with an English language album he was able to establish himself in the United States and bring over the Hallyu Wave to the Western World. In Choe Sang-Hun and Mark Russell’s article “Bringing K-Pop to the West” they describe what K-Pop means “K-pop is part of a broader trend known as the Korean Wave and called ''hallyu'' in Korean. The Taiwanese were among the first to notice the invasion of Korean soap operas in their television programming in the late 1990s and gave the phenomenon its name. Until then, the term had referred to the cold winds blowing down from the Korean Peninsula” (NYTimes). Yet the Korean Wave still hasn’t rained on the Western World as widely as expected. The only artist that has been able to truly breakout in the American Music is PSY, whose popular Gangnam Style has become one of the most well-known songs. The difficulties that Korean artist face when trying to enter the American Hip-Hop industry is that they are faced with a culture that believes that true Hip-Hop is an American made industry. Korean Hip-Hop is a part of the Korean Pop or K-Pop industry is still Korean in the eyes of the western music industry and although some artist have attempted to break-out in America no one has been able to do so even with PSY paving the way.

            If you pay close attention to the influences of Korean Hip-Hop it is mostly an American influence. In Crystal S. Anderson’s article “HallyU.S.A: America's Impact on the Korean Wave,” Anderson writes that “While Hallyu cultural production may incorporate global cultural aspects, K-pop draws most heavily from American culture music in the form of R&B and hip-hop” (130). The draws of Hip-Hop and R&B music is also felt with the women in the K-Pop industry. One of the main arguments in Hip-Hop is the misrepresentation of women in both music videos and lyrics in an industry that sells sex appeal to the listeners. Emmett G. Price III addresses the issue of women in the industry in his book Hip Hop Culture saying, “In the fight over these misogynist aspects of Hip Hop and its various manifestations via images, lyrics, and other presentations, some argue that women who participate should receive the blame for allowing themselves to be portrayed and depicted in this manner” (69). The South Korean music industry uses sex appeal for the majority of its artist, but for female artist sex appeal is turned up to draw in male audiences, by using short skirts and short shorts, but where they differ is that the female artist are still mostly clothed. Yet it is still hard for female artist to break out without having some kind of appeal unlike PSY who used his video as a playful gimmick towards his hometown of Gangnam. Rolling Stone’s article “The 10 K-Pop Groups Most Likely to Break in America”, addresses why it has been impossible for Korean artist to break out in the past, “In the past, popular Korean acts (like BoA and Se7en) made unsuccessful American debuts likely due to the fact that they were molded by American record labels to be presented in a way they saw best to break into the notoriously difficult market.” Out of all of the artist that have been named in the 2012 article seven are female artist and out of them only one has the American Hip-Hop truly interested and that group is 2NE1. The group has caught the attention of not only American fans but also Will-i-am, as well as fashion designer Jeremy Scott, are a part of an Adidas campaign and have had their song “I Am the Best” as a part of the Microsoft’s Surface Pro 3 campaign commercial.

            What has made these artist popular in the American music industry is attributed to the use of social media as a part of their marketing campaigns. 2NE1’s twitter account Global Blackjack, Blackjack is the name of that their fans call themselves, has over 300 thousand followers. Each member of the group each has their own twitter account, which altogether amount to over 5 million followers worldwide. One of the biggest social media success stories is from PSY whose video for “Gangnam Style” has over 2 billion views on YouTube. When the video came out it gained social media popularity from many artist and news outlets in the United States.

“The American rapper T-Pain was retweeted 2,400 times when he wrote "Words cannot even describe how amazing this video is." Pop stars expressed admiration. Billboard is extolling his commercial viability; Justin Bieber's manager is allegedly interested. The Wall Street Journal posted "5 Must-See" response videos. On Monday, a worker at L.A.'s Dodger stadium noticed Park in the stands and played "Gangnam Style" over the stadium P.A. system as excited baseball fans spontaneously reproduced Park's distinct dance in the video. "I have to admit I've watched it about 15 times," said a CNN anchor. "Of course, no one here in the U.S. has any idea what Psy is rapping about.” (theatlantic.com)

The popularity of the video hasn’t died down and neither has PSY’s popularity in the global market. Yet no other artist has seen the same success as PSY in the industry because his songs are catchy as most pop tunes on the radio. The other side of the breakout is an attempted breakout of an artist, such as Girl’s Generation whose videos are at the top of YouTube’s watch list but failed to make a hit in the United States. Artist aren’t seen as true Hip-Hop in the eyes of the American industry because many groups use a mix of pop, rap, R&B, and many other genres all originally modeled after the American made industry but changed to fit their own mold of what they want to be known for.

            One of the most debated issues in the Hip-Hop industry is the choice of lyrics used by an artist in their music. “During the mid-1980s, as Hip Hop spread nationally and globally, a collective of wealthy mothers, challenged by the addition of Hip Hop to their children’s taste palate, gathered to form a strategy to contain the “negative” music and to remove it from their children’s reach” (Price 74). These mothers created the Parent’s Music Resource Center in order to censor not only Hip-Hop music but also rock, and heavy metal in hopes to keep it off of the shelves with the parental advisor sticker on the albums. This didn’t stop the spread of the music but instead it made it more appealing to the generation of teens that would grow up during this time. The sticker remains on the albums decades later but it has created a different view in the international market. In South Korea the context of their lyrics is different from what is viewed in the United States. Korean artist don’t use curse words, or provocative words in their lyrics the message is different especially in artist that are trying to relate a message to their audience. 2NE1 is one example, their song “Ugly” out of their 2011 mini-album display the words of the young audience who are lead to believe that they need to look like a model or a famous artist to be popular. In translation the first two lines of the song are, “I put a big smile on, but I don’t like how I look, I’m not pretty, I’m not beautiful” (kpopquote). The song uses simple words to bring out a message that is strong and powerful. The other side is PSY’s “Gangnam Style” where “the song itself, suggest a subtext with a surprisingly subversive message about class and wealth in contemporary South Korean society” (theatlantic.com). The song uses satire to display a person who isn’t from the neighborhood of Gangnam trying to enter the neighborhood in order to be noticed. “Koreans have been kind of caught up in this spending to look wealthy, and Gangnam has really been the leading edge of that," Hong said. "I think a lot of what [Psy] is pointing out is how silly that is. The whole video is about him thinking he's a hotshot but then realizing he's just, you know, at a children's playground, or thinking he's playing polo or something and realizes he's on a merry-go-round.” Like American artist these Korean artist are trying to send a message but it is also one that is lost to American audiences unless they look through the pages and pages of information on the internet that describe what they are trying to say. The lyrics are clean compared to American rap and Hip-Hop but the messages are as clear as day.

Although Hip Hop is considered an American made industry it shouldn’t limit other artist from other countries ability to break out in the industry. Female artist still express sex appeal, as do the male artist, but they aren’t limited to this. Korean artist have something to bring to the industry in the U.S. the problem is that the American market is saturated with artist who will rap about getting cars, money, and women that it outside artist who have true messages are left out. The industry needs these artist to revive what was once normal in Hip-Hop lyrics and that is the message of empowerment or telling people that they shouldn’t conform to one ideology of how they should act in order to fit in. Korean artist shouldn’t have to fully adapt to the current model of Hip-Hop in order to break out in the American industry they should be seen for what they can bring into the market. What they’ve adapted from the culture itself is also a part of their appeal to the market because they’ve taken the good parts of the industry and spinned it create a new age of Hip-Hop.

Works Cited

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of South Korean Popular Culture: Hallyu Unbound. Ed. Valentina Marinescu. Revised ed. Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2014. 123-134. Print.

Fisher, Max. "Gangnam Style, Dissected: The Subversive Message Within South Korea's Music

Video Sensation." The Atlantic. Atlantic Media Company, 23 Aug. 2012. Web. 17 Jan. 2016. <http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/08/gangnam-style-dissected-the-subversive-message-within-south-koreas-music-video-sensation/261462/>.

"[Lyric] Ugly - 2NE1 [Hangul, Romanization, English]." Kpopquote. 26 Sept. 2011. Web. 17

Jan. 2016. <https://kpopquote.wordpress.com/2011/09/26/lyric-ugl-2ne1-hangul-

romanization-english/>.

Price, Emmett George. Hip Hop Culture. Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-CLIO, 2006. Print.

Sang-Hun, Choe, and Russell, Mark. "Bringing K-Pop to the West.(Business/Financial Desk)."

The New York Times 05 Mar. 2012: B10. Web.

Walsh, Bryan. "The 2006 TIME 100." Time. Time Inc., 8 May 2006. Web. 17 Jan. 2016.

"2NE1 - The 10 K-Pop Groups Most Likely to Break in America." Rolling Stone. Rolling Stone,

18 May 2012. Web. 17 Jan. 2016.