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American American Influence
ORIGINATION Despite its popularity around the world, both Hip hop and rap are both musical genres invented by African American cultures, often utilized as an underground resistance to white supremacy. Though African American musical cultures were originally exported to South Korea after the after the Korean War as a result of an increased military presence, the development of Korean Hip-hop began in the 1990’s as a result of the end of the regime of South Korea’s last dictator, Park Chung Hee. Both the inauguration of President* Kim Young Sam, as well as the relaxation of censorship laws allowed for Korean musicians to take advantage of their democratic and creative freedoms, leading to further exploration into Korean music. This increase in creative freedoms led to R&B and Hip-hop to rise to popularity, as it "represented musical traditions that spoke to the creative possibilities opening in Korean society.”

AESTHETICS BORROWED

RAPPING SECTION HERE

In addition to the tradition of rapping, Korean musicians have adopted mixing from African American originated genres. Mixing can be found in many Korean hip-hop songs, from the original Korean rappers, & the boys, to more modern Korean rappers, such as G-dragon. Mixing, as originated in hip hop and rap, is the process of cutting and mixing different sound bites from all kinds of media in order to create something new. Since the method allows artists to create something new out of something already existing, Mixing has become popular globally as a “tool for reworking local identity all over the world.”

Styles of singing have also been borrowed from African American traditions. Polytonal vocal keys, the key often used in R&B music, has become more popular for Korean musicians to use. For example, the Korean group Big Mama are utilize this scale to sound more soulful in their music. This shift to polytonal vocal keys marks a departure from the pentatonic scales more widely used in the 70’s and 80’s in South Korea.

CULTURAL APPROPRIATION There are both critics and supporters of Hip hop Korean groups utilizing Black genres. Those who critique Korean Hip hop often accuse Korean musicians as culturally appropriating Black aesthetics, saying the borrowing of these aesthetics should be seen as imitation or theft. Some critics claim the utilization of African-American originated aesthetics commotizes Blackness,

Fans of Korean hip hop often applaud the groups for being well versed in many genres, including ones originated by Black cultures. Other proponents for Korean hip-hop claim that the genre allows Koreans to have a vehicle to express their own experiences of dominance and local conditions.

Though Korean musicians are influenced by African American music, many Korean musicians have also mixed in local characteristics of their culture into their music by utilizing images and instruments that originated in Korea. For example, Master Plan Production utilized traditional Korean art styles, as well as traditional hip hop aesthetics to create the cover of their compilation album, P’yungnyu (2002)

(PICTURE HERE) The cover of P’yungnyu (2002), Master Plan Production’s compilation album utilizes both traditional Korean and African American aesthetics.