In the early to mid-1990s, groups such as Hyun Jin Young and Wawa, Seo Taiji and Boys, and DEUX helped introduce hip hop to Korean audiences by incorporating rap into mainstream dance music and performance. This style will later be labelled “rap dance,” a precedent to K-pop, where rap is frequently formulated into segments of dance songs.1 During this period, television—particularly channels like AFKN and later MTV—served as a gateway to American hip hop for Korean youth. An important coinciding moment is the 1992 LA Riots, which would have an impact on how Koreans viewed Black American communities and how hip hop was perceived in South Korea during its formative years. These sociocultural and historical conditions set the backdrop for the rise of Hanguk hip hop [Korean hip hop] from the mid- to late-1990s, when Korean fans of American hip hop—through the help of technology, most notably personal computer...
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March 2023
Research Article|
March 01 2023
Hip Hop Mun Ikjeom: The Life and Music of Hyun Jin Young
Myoung-Sun Song
Myoung-Sun Song
Dr. Myung-Sun Song is an assistant professor in the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Her research focuses on the representations of race, gender, sexuality, class, and national identity in Korean media and popular culture. She is the author of Hanguk Hip Hop: Global Rap in South Korea (2019, Palgrave Macmillan), the first scholarly book-length study in English or Korean on the subject of Korean hip hop.
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Journal of Popular Music Studies (2023) 35 (1): 4–19.
Citation
Myoung-Sun Song; Hip Hop Mun Ikjeom: The Life and Music of Hyun Jin Young. Journal of Popular Music Studies 1 March 2023; 35 (1): 4–19. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/jpms.2023.35.1.4
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