Frank Kogan

Her raps on "Roly-Poly" and "Why Are You Being Like This?" are my two favorite things she's done! Definitely push the envelope on behalf of T-ara, take what's in T-ara and ramp it further. I imagine if she were writing words to match that voice, she'd be a female Ad-Rock.

But that's going to be a future post, in which I'll embed some things you'll find torture. (Of course, you've yourself to blame, since it was your comment about T-ara being exceptionally good — and distinct — as girl-group rappers, a talk-style that has what you call "exciting speed and compactness," that got me thinking how T-ara's raps really are special to T-ara, extend what's going on in the rest of the music rather than being merely hip-hop interludes or breaks. But as I said, that's to come later.)

An answer to the question, "Why did they add her?" Well, those two raps in particular are the ones where she's not just a weaker Eunjung, so she's doing something no one else is doing. But I think her dancing may have had lots to do with it too. Or maybe Mnet wanted both her and Hyoyoung but didn't want them both in the same group, so the question was, "OK, where do we put Hwayoung?"

I hadn't realized it wasn't Hwayoung in the SPEED by T-ara vid. The track is terrific for 40 seconds, with the vintage pushy house bass and the quasi-dissonant orchestra; falls dead once SPEED start singing. Too bad, 'cause briefly I thought I was hearing something new for K-pop.