As K-pop has become a global phenomenon in the twenty-first century, the production of Anglophone scholarly works on the subject has increased greatly. However, the number of monographs on K-pop remains small. Myoung-Sun Song's Hanguk Hip Hop is thus a welcome addition. It is possible that some may consider hip-hop to be merely a condiment for K-pop, or that hip-hop is not (or should not be) fully a part of K-pop. However, as exemplified by the long-running reality television series Show Me the Money (SMTM), it can even be argued that hip-hop has become a new trend in K-pop. Moreover, understanding the development of K-pop is not possible without recognizing its interrelations with hip-hop from the start. Needless to say, scholars and enthusiasts of Korean popular music will find much of value in Hanguk Hip Hop, which centers on Song's interviews with a multigenerational group of representative Korean rappers over four years. The book will also be informative to those who are interested in how hip-hop has been glocalized.
Hanguk Hip Hop illustrates the ways in which Korean artists and fans drew on US hip-hop music and culture to make them their own; it further interrogates how they negotiated and represented race and gender in the process. The first chapter provides a historical overview of Korean hip-hop and argues that buran, a Korean term describing personal and societal anxiety or uncertainty, is the distinctively Korean aspect of Hanguk hip-hop. Chapter 2 explains how Song's interviewees have negotiated the authenticity of Hanguk hip-hop in terms of sound, language, lyrical content, music scene, and Korean culture. Based in the Hongdae area, Korean hip-hop artists constructed an identity centered on their appreciation for hip-hop, including its historical and cultural roots.
In chapter 3, Song deftly describes the place and space making in Hongdae by both hip-hop musicians and fans, who initially shared information and interests in personal computer (PC) communities. Chapter 4 examines the financial and critical success of the “rapstars” Dok2 and The Quiett, the CEOs of the independent label Illionaire Records, and shows how their experience functions as a new type of self-deployment text among hip-hop newbies who are experiencing buran in neoliberal South Korea. In chapter 5, Song uses the example of RM, the leader of BTS, to argue that K-pop idols should earn their authenticity with the public by proving themselves as rappers. Song further discusses the blurred boundaries between K-pop and hip-hop as represented in the contested designation of “idol rapper.”
Chapter 6 takes on the issues of gender and representation in Korean hip-hop, focusing on the television program Unpretty Rapstar, a female spin-off of SMTM. Here Song explains the double binds that exist for female rappers. They are asked to be both pretty and skilled but are assumed to be only one or the other. Despite the help that the program offered in promoting the comparatively underrepresented female rappers, Song points out that Unpretty Rapstar was produced from a male-centered perspective and had the effect of reinforcing the female rappers’ problems. In the concluding chapter, Song briefly mentions the globalizing efforts of Hanguk hip-hop with a discussion of the fifth season of SMTM, which included auditions that took place outside Korea.
The strength of Hanguk Hip Hop lies in the oral histories of the artists, which Song has painstakingly collected and recorded. In particular, chapter 2 depicts vividly how hip-hop fans, first by joining PC communities and then participating in offline meetings in Hongdae, developed into hip-hop musicians and how they struggled to sustain or reignite hip-hop spirit through making alternative genba. At the same time, by engaging with South Korean scholars and specialists who have actively published on Korean hip-hop and other styles of indie music, Song could have situated their oral histories in a broader context. For example, I was curious about the legal and industry-related circumstances that inspired young people to become rappers in addition to Song's explanation of buran or a self-deployment text. Regarding chapter 5, I wonder whether BOBBY's victory in the third season of SMTM as an idol trainee of YG Entertainment might have been a more effective case study than RM in her discussion of “idol rappers” and the complex relations between K-pop and hip-hop, considering that such issues were fiercely contested among artists and viewers throughout the season.
Despite these reservations, I believe that Hanguk Hip Hop provides much-needed information about African American musical influences and appropriation in K-pop, especially when read alongside Crystal Anderson's recent Soul in Seoul: African American Popular Music and K-Pop.
