Hello, another article on kpop. It's a fascinating and addictive topic, right? lol
I'm not here to talk about cultural appropriation. I won't talk about race either.
My post is about incorporating Western elements that are not from pop music in kpop. The way they do it, how they benefit from it, and how they manage to have some credibility.
Let's start with the recent buzz with the brand new girlband WASSUP who was announced to "bring twerking to kpop".
Oh-kay...
So, twerking is clearly from hip hop, the Caribbean and Africa...which have nothing to do with massively mainstream pop music. Why not putting this girlgroup in the hip hop or dancehall category? Have you seen Katy Perry twerk? Even Beyoncé doesn't really twerk, she basically shakes her booty and hips but that's it. She's too classy for that ish.
So, this Korean music label is using these dance moves from non pop music to make a buzz in Korea and promote their new kpop girlband. Desperate strategy, that's low. Will Koreans really like it?? Doesn't seem like it. They don't seem to have a concept for this twerking thing, the teaser vids look ratchet or plain, low budget. It's just a copy/paste thing.
Are the girls good at it? One is decent, the others suck.
Why make a buzz about it if your girls can't do it right?? Because some white girl (Miley Cyrus) made it acceptable to twerk awkwardly so Koreans want to do it too (they actually showed her video in their first promotional "interview").
Same thing for hip hop clothes, swag and cliches. Why CL from 2NE1 had to do that, with gangsta-looking dudes in the background à la G-dragon (in One of A Kind)? CL is an idol rapper, which means POP rapper, which means she's from a pop girlband. Really she wants to claim her queen's crown as the baddest female? Isn't this pretentious hip hop-wannabe idol shit right here? Like, she ain't hip hop and she ain't that good but she claims she's the shit in that genre? IT WORKS. Hype is so manipulated. Do you see Yoon Mi Rae wearing these clothes and having an old school hip hop MV, acting all that and repeating how bad she is? Nope but she would have every right to do so. YMR did say a few times (in tracks she was featured) that she's the "illest in town" and that the crown is hers but she actually IS the shit and a hip hop rapper. She doesn't need all that bling bling, cliches and try-hard attitude to look credible.
Another example of pop with hint of hip hop is SNSD's "I Got A Boy". These girls represent kpop and cutesyness. Why oh why would they try (yes, "try") to shake their bottoms and wear hip hop clothes? For hype. Just like when Korean singers cast white models in their MVs, it's for edginess and hype. SNSD sucked at that hip hop thing. Why make a fool of yourself?? Because Korean fans wouldn't know that they suck anyway? They brought the standard lower so fans are not going to expect much.
Korean pop music sacrifices quality for hype, and it has been doing it a lot these days. I can't take kpop fans seriously when they say stuff like "American pop is crappy so now I listen to kpop". Really? Kpop is currently as crappy as American pop. But kpop will soon fully embarass kpop fans so much that they won't say shit like that anymore. Unless they're stans.
What bothers me is the fact that they're taking undeserved hype for something unrelated to them or they didn't work their asses for (because they suck). International kpop fans will love everything they do and say how kpop is the best when it actually keeps borrowing from everywhere. Instead of focusing on themselves, they prefer borrowing what's already successful in the West. What's next? Brazilian funk? Pop rock? Jazz?
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