Racial insensitivity is a rampant issue within the contemporary K-Pop space. Whether it is along the lines of cultural appropriation and enforcing of stereotypes based on race, or blatant discrimination coming from K-pop idols, the prevalence only seems to get worse as Korea becomes a more multicultural country. One of the main cultures being stereotyped and stolen from is Black/African American culture within the States... but why is this? I believe that it is the access to American hip-hop sub culture (which strictly derives from Black/ African American culture) and the misunderstanding of cultural appreciation versus appropriation with Korean artists that do not seem to either be educated on or want to be educated on the racial disparities within America that hip-hop was born from. Scholar Um Hae-kyung says, “Hip-hop and rap are global but emerged as a quintessentially African American cultural form and diasporic expression, especially in the contexts of subcultural, underground resistance against the dominant hegemony (Gilroy 1993; Lipsitz 1994; Rose 1994; Potter 1995)” (2013: 52). Hip-hop was a way to break free from the endless issues in these communities and be constructive with your situation, something that many Koreans who have partaken in this sub-culture will never know or experience due to the vast differences between situations. Moreover, for the style and expression of hip-hop to be characterized in the ways that it is being utilized by Korean artists it can be damaging to the original communities, because to the average Korean citizen, hip-hop is just a style, just a genre, but to those who belong to the subculture and who have experienced the need for hip-hop as an outlet it is so much more.
Dr. CedarBough Saeji tells that hip-hop was introduced through Korean Americans and youths who had spent time within America. They have come to understand the racial connotations of hip-hop however, Koreans who did not have access seem to misunderstand and appropriate: “…the tensions and pitfalls of racially loaded imagery are harder to parse, and hence maintaining the sensitivity to racial issues that an American performer might is nearly impossible” (2016: 267). Native Korean individuals who have not been to America themselves do not see the nature of the sub-culture they are partaking in, making it extremely easy for lines to be crossed. However, in my opinion repeat offenses are in no way excusable once offensive behavior has been called out and dealt with once. We see hip-hop and African American culture being utilized in K-Pop many times through styling; braids, “dreads”, clothing styles all of which may create a stereotype against the original culture and can be offending. I have seen artists be praised for cultural appropriating in this way, yet in America, African American individuals partaking in their own culture often are chastised, it is unfair. I believe that to accurately participate in hip-hop one should know the roots and the meaning of the genre, but we often see miseducation within the K-Pop community in regards to the culture the genre derives from, hip-hop being whittled down to appropriating hair styles and throwing a rap verse into a song.
References:
Saeji, CedarBough. “Cosmopolitan Strivings and Racialisation: The Foreign Dancing Body in Korean Popular Music Videos.” Korean Screen Cultures: Interrogating Cinema, TV, Music and Online Games, edited by Andrew David Jackson and Colette Balmain. 265- 69. New York: Peter Lang, 2016.
Um, Hae-kyung. “The poetics of resistance and the politics of crossing borders: Korean hip- hop and ‘cultural reterritorialization’” Popular Music, no.32 (2013): 51-64.
@Taitum Silvers I really liked your essay and the topic because it is something that always annoys me, especially since I have traveled more into the Korean Hip hop scene as my tastes have changed, and I always hated the image Korean rappers were trying to go for because it felt so inauthentic when hip hop is supposed to be authentic. I do agree that Koreans should try to educate themselves more on the culture of it, but I also think they should just not try to copy it instead. If they do not care about the culture of it, then that is their loss, and they are not fully getting the whole experience of what hip hop can offer, but if someone likes rapping, then I think they have the right to do so and do as they like because it is a creative genre, but I think where Korea goes wrong is they think success will come with imitation instead of being themselves or original in this specific art form. They look at the artists in the US, and they think that is how they should be because hip hop is not something created in Korea unlike K-pop which is their art form.