Korean freestyle Friday part 1: Huckleberry P and SOOLj

[koganbot]

Just spent an hour on YouTube listening to freestyle raps in Korean, a language I don't understand. Here's Huckleberry P.

"Korean Freestyle Rap - Huckleberry P" (Watch on YouTube)

And here's Huck and SOOLj. Don't know if they're debating or organizing or what, but on the basis of their flow and demeanor, they've got my vote. Mayor and deputy mayor.

"Mic Swagger - 5편 Huckleberry P" (Watch on YouTube)

(Just beginning to explore this, but something seems to go wrong when Huck gets in an actual-for-real recording studio, usually as a guest rapper. He'll be spittin' fine but he'll be caught in a lugubrious arrangement, or the whole thing will be in tedious sincere-style rapping, the bane of Korean hip-hop. In contrast, this year's SOOLj EP, Electro SOOLj, is quite good - maybe 'cause it's fundamentally dance, and SOOLj has tendencies towards the other freestyle, the '80s one out of Miami and New York dance clubs.)

Comments

[askbask.livejournal.com]

tedious sincere-style rapping, the bane of Korean hip-hop

I hear that.

Here's the junior club open mic night of rap battles (that's the impression, anyway): http://pann.nate.com/video/217276726 See several of these uploaded each week. Never any beats.

[koganbot]

My modem can't handle pann.nate.com, unfortunately.

[askbask.livejournal.com]

Hey, there's our friend Teddy at the very beginning of this video with his hoodie n' cap http://www.thesinglesjukebox.com/?p=3412

[koganbot]

Well whaddya know.

A quick glance through Google revealed no info as to why he was in the vid. In any event, I let our friends at the Singles Jukebox in on this, though I doubt any of them will have an explanation either.

[askbask.livejournal.com]

As you point out Diplo is the connection, but why Teddy is there I don't know. Maybe they've just become good friends.. would be interesting if a K-pop producer did some work with American artist, though, and not the other way around.

By the way, you mentioned earlier a potential discussion about how k-pop is financially viable, the sales charts, etc. Things have happened since then. Gaon are now releasing weekly download figures for tracks (but not album sales, although they did give us album numbers for 2010 in total), there's a couple of Guardian articles about k-pop where a Universal Europe guy brings up sales figures, and there's this chart that shows us Korea is the only market in the top 20 where digital sales outrank physical: http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5146/5677049790_9dd48f7e98_b.jpg

- all of which support the picture of a market where the physical album is almost extinct, but where digital sales are healthier than mostly every other market (in sheer number of downloads, although with lower prices)

- The most-downloaded track in the USA 2010 was California Girls, at 4,398,212 million downloads.
- The most-downloaded track in Korea 2010 "Can't Let You Go, Even if I Die", at 3,352,827 million downloads.
(Best-selling US album 2010: 3.42 million, Korea: 200,193)

Guardian: K-pop: how South Korea turned round its music scene - "I've never had a single release [in Korea] that has sold less than 400,000"

Guardian: Behind the music: What is K-Pop and why are the Swedish getting involved

This week's download chart Park Bom tops with 417,710 downloads.