Korean hip hop

Early 1990s: Origins of Korean hip hop

Hip hop first emerged in Korea in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Following the end of authoritarian military rule in Korea, the loosening of state censorship of popular music in the late 1980s and the arrival of 1988 Seoul Olympics brought global musical styles like hip hop, rap, and rhythm and blues through the Korean diaspora. Rock musician Hong Seo-beom's 1989 song about a 19th-century Korean poet, "Kim Sat-gat," is credited as being the first Korean pop song to contain rapping. Hyun Jin-young, a rapper who debuted the following year with the album, New Dance, is considered to be the first Korean hip hop artist.

The debut of Seo Taiji and Boys in 1992 with the song, "Nan Arayo," marked a revolution in Korean popular music. The group incorporated American-style hip hop and R&B into their music, a move that was so influential that they are considered the originators of modern K-pop, and their explosive popularity paved the way for both pop and hip hop artists in Korea. Other popular groups who helped spread hip hop into the Korean mainstream in the early 1990s include Deux and DJ DOC.

Late 1990s-2010s: Mainstream popularity and underground innovation

The Korean hip hop scene grew considerably in the late 1990s and early 2000s due largely to a growing hip hop club scene and the influence of the internet. While K-pop groups continued to incorporate rap into their songs, this time period also saw the emergence of pure hip hop groups, notably Drunken Tiger, "the first commercially successful true hip hop group" in Korea. The group's single, "Good Life" topped Korean charts in 2001, despite the fact that the group was considered controversial due to the explicit nature of their songs. Hip hop duo Jinusean, who were signed to former Seo Taiji and Boys member Yang Hyun-suk's new label YG Entertainment, also found mainstream success during this period with their songs "Tell Me" and "A-Yo," among others.

In 2001, then-underground rapper Verbal Jint released his first mini-album, Modern Rhymes, which introduced an innovation to Korean hip hop: rhyming. Prior to this, Korean hip hop lacked rhyming because it was seen as too difficult due to the grammatical structure of the Korean language. Verbal Jint's method for creating rhymes was widely adopted by other artists. Rap duo Garion also made an impact on the underground Korean hip hop community with their 2004 self-titled debut album, notable for being entirely in Korean.

More Korean hip hop artists experienced mainstream popularity and success in the 2000s and 2010s. Dynamic Duo's 2004 album, Taxi Driver, sold over half a million copies, making it the best-selling Korean hip hop album ever at the time. Epik High topped music charts in both Korea and Japan in the mid-2000s and reached the #1 spot on the Billboard World Albums Chart with their 2014 album, Shoebox. Rap duo Leessang's album, Asura Balbalta, topped Korean charts just one hour after it was released in 2011, with every song from the album simultaneously charting in the top ten on several real-time music charts.

2010s-present: Show Me The Money and international popularity

Korean hip hop's profile was again heightened in 2012 with the debut of the TV reality series, Show Me The Money. The show, which features both underground and mainstream rappers, is credited with increasing the popularity of hip hop in Korea. Interest in the series has since spread abroad, with rappers who participated in the show's fourth season performing in the United States in 2015. The show also held auditions for its fifth season in Los Angeles in 2016. Other Korean hip hop artists, including the rosters of popular record labels Illionaire Records, AOMG, and Amoeba Culture, toured the United States in 2015 and 2016. Epik High also held a North American tour and played U.S. music and film festival SXSW in 2015 before becoming the first major Korean group to play U.S. music festival Coachella in 2016. Though less popular in his native Korea, rapper Keith Ape became a viral sensation in 2015 with his song, "It G Ma." The song is credited with helping expand Korean hip hop's audience abroad. In 2016, the Korea Foundation cited Korean hip hop as a new trend in the Korean Wave, the term commonly used to refer to the recent spread of Korean pop culture throughout the world.

Relationship with K-pop

In its early days, most Korean hip hop fell into a category called "rap dance," where artists mixed rapping with pop music. There are still many K-pop artists who incorporate rap into their music, including popular groups Big Bang and Block B. Some K-pop rappers, commonly known as "idol rappers," are active in the hip hop scene, including Bobby, member of boy band iKON and winner of season three of Show Me The Money, and Rap Monster, a member of boy band BTS whose 2015 mixtape was included in Spin magazine's list of the year's best hip hop albums.

Many Korean hip hop artists have also collaborated with K-pop artists. Successful collaborations include "Some," a 2014 song by Soyou of girl group Sistar, R&B singer Junggigo, and rapper Lil Boi, that was Billboard's K-pop Hot 100's longest running #1 hit of 2014; "A Midsummer Night's Sweetness," a 2014 collaboration of After School's Raina and rapper San E, that topped ten Korean music charts shortly after its debut and went on to win several major year-end awards; and "I," a 2015 song by Girls' Generation's Taeyeon featuring rapper Verbal Jint, that topped eight Korean music charts after its release.

B-boying scene

B-boying, also known as break dancing, was introduced to Korea in the 1980s by dance clubs in the Itaewon neighborhood of Seoul, which were frequented by U.S. military personnel and other foreigners. But it is wasn't until 2001 that Korean b-boys received international recognition, when the dance crew Visual Shock won "best show" and fourth place at Battle of the Year, the biggest b-boy competition in the world. Korean crews went on to win either first or second place at the competition for the next several years.

In 2007, the Korean Tourism Organization founded an international b-boying competition called R-16 Korea. The event, which draws tens of thousands of spectators to Seoul each year, is also highly profitable for the Korean government. Korean hip hop artists, including Jay Park, Yoon Mi-rae, and Drunken Tiger's Tiger JK, have performed at R-16.

B-boying has also experienced popularity in Korean theater, including, notably, the musical, Ballerina Who Loved a B-Boy, which premiered in Korea in 2005 with performances in other countries, including Singapore, Japan, China, Guam, Colombia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The show was still staged daily in Korea as of 2013.