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Chuli & Miae 1993 (Freestyle Tuesday)
Jan. 8th, 2013 11:20 pmHope to post about GLAM in the near future, as they're Socially Important in a good way, and not just because they copy or sample a vocal curlicue from the Cover Girls. But it's that curlicue which is the subject of this post, since, from the way GLAM use it, I'm pretty sure they got it not directly from "Because Of You," but by way of "Why You," a 1993 track by Chuli & Miae (철이 와 미애).
For a couple of years now I've been hammering in the point about K-pop drawing on freestyle, though not hammering with a lot of ideas, just the fact of the influence. (For more hammering, here's my freestyle tag.*) But "Why You" isn't merely influence, it's the thing itself, a Korean track that's out-and-out freestyle. It isn't only freestyle, though. In fact, it's very 1993 (as opposed to 1988), unequivocably freestyle while employing an int'l house mashup strategy. Pretty interesting and doesn't quite match anything I ever heard in the U.S. It starts with the Cover Girls curlicue on repeat,** the vocal riff seeming to call across an oceanic distance. This drifts into poignant house atmospherics, then a properly twisting freestyle riff, setting up a talk-rap that isn't trying to sound hip-hop, while the Cover Girls curlicue is cut up and inserted in little bits, and shards of Korean singing punctuate the rapping. Finally, the singing takes center stage, coalescing into an unabashed freestyle melody directly in the Mickey Garcia/Elvin Molina style of mournful NYC melodies circa 1989 — this all in the first minute and a quarter.
( Footnotes )
For a couple of years now I've been hammering in the point about K-pop drawing on freestyle, though not hammering with a lot of ideas, just the fact of the influence. (For more hammering, here's my freestyle tag.*) But "Why You" isn't merely influence, it's the thing itself, a Korean track that's out-and-out freestyle. It isn't only freestyle, though. In fact, it's very 1993 (as opposed to 1988), unequivocably freestyle while employing an int'l house mashup strategy. Pretty interesting and doesn't quite match anything I ever heard in the U.S. It starts with the Cover Girls curlicue on repeat,** the vocal riff seeming to call across an oceanic distance. This drifts into poignant house atmospherics, then a properly twisting freestyle riff, setting up a talk-rap that isn't trying to sound hip-hop, while the Cover Girls curlicue is cut up and inserted in little bits, and shards of Korean singing punctuate the rapping. Finally, the singing takes center stage, coalescing into an unabashed freestyle melody directly in the Mickey Garcia/Elvin Molina style of mournful NYC melodies circa 1989 — this all in the first minute and a quarter.
( Footnotes )
