Chuli & Miae 1993 (Freestyle Tuesday)

[koganbot]

Hope 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).

Watch on YouTube

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.

*Freestyle is one of the names given to a Latino dance music style that came out of Miami and New York in the '80s, the Miami version using a lighter touch and being more interracial, the NY version being heavily, dolorously Latino, but both sites drawing massively on the Robie-Baker electrofunk used by DJ Afrika Bambaataa & Soul Sonic Force's "Planet Rock." Freestyle added twisting intertwining riffs and wild beats, with New York City bringing melodies of deep and passionate sadness.

**I'm calling it a curlicue 'cause I don't know if it's a direct sample or a copy, but there's no question where it's from. Btw, it was Brad Nelson over on ilX who alerted us to the Cover Girls being the source of the curlicue in GLAM's "I Like That," crediting Maura Johnston with recognizing it. A couple people over on omonatheydidnt also recognized it, and that's where someone linked Chuli & Miae, though without any information. Over at allkpop, the writers haven't yet caught on to the Cover Girls connection but say that "I Like That" "modernizes the '90s K-pop classic, Chul-E & Miae's 'Why You,' with its hip-hop sound." This isn't true; "I Like That" simply lifts the bit that "Why You" previously lifted from the Cover Girls' "Because Of You," while otherwise being a very different song.

Comments

Actually, I am on Tumblr

[koganbot]

Actually, I am on Tumblr, and Twitter too, but I mainly use them as feeds for this lj. Tumblr is fascinating and I wish I had time for it, and its capacity for ad hoc conversations and sudden new connections is excellent. I like the platform, its ease and freedom. But to be honest, Tumblr is also deeply frustrating, not the platform but the culture. In their more complex and educated way, people in what would be my Tumblr circle* act out every bit as much as the K-pop Netizens who went to war over T-ara. Not that I have anything in principle against acting out, or think it's incompatible with self-knowledge and insight. In fact, acting out is where people get a lot of their self-knowledge, when it dawns on them where their acts come from and what they mean. The acting-out often is where the thinking begins. And seeing people in action is often as instructive as reading an analytic essay. But in this particular Tumblr World, the acting-out seems fundamentally peevish and unhappy, and comes at the expense of real thought. And it brings out the worst in me when I read it.

I'm being deliberately vague.

Also, I want people to come to me, now. I mean that metaphorically as well as literally. (More vagueness.)

I'm on Facebook too but refuse to friend anybody, except when doing so is the only way to view a particular community or to get on Turntable FM.

http://koganbot.tumblr.com
http://twitter.com/koganbot

And here I was on MySpace, which is in the process of remaking itself into oblivion. I should post some new links from there to here, in case anyone's still looking.

http://www.myspace.com/frankkogan

*I tended to follow by way of my RSS, which I now almost never look at.

Re: Actually, I am on Tumblr

[sub-divided.livejournal.com]

Followed you on tumblr so I could send you a message, but there's a certain amount of time you need to have been following to do that.

We have different tumblr circles, but I think I might know what you mean. I'm not sure the platform and the culture are distinct from each other, though. The way I see it, Tumblr is easy, and because it's easy, it encourages people to write and act impulsively - whereas on this blog you tend to take a lot more time to think through your positions. The conversation on tumblr moves quickly, so the emphasis there is also on weighing in quickly with your two cents, or else risk missing out altogether.

That's if you are weighing in, and not reblogging something that struck you without necessarily committing to saying anything about it. Which is most of my friends, so I like tumblr as a way of finding new things.

I am also on Facebook and Twitter but only use them to message people who are hard to get a hold of in other ways.

And ha, this is my first time looking at a Myspace page in ages. It looks like last.fm now.

Re: Actually, I am on Tumblr

[koganbot]

You can send me a message through Livejournal, if you want. You can email me, for that matter: edcasual at earthlink dot net.