This talk explores the travel of hip hop from the United States to South Korea. We will historicize important moments within Korean hip hop from the introduction of “rap dance” in the early 1990s and the birth of the underground scene in the late 1990s to the recent popularity of reality competition shows like Show Me the Money and Unpretty Rapstar. How did Korean hip hop develop in the last three decades as a musical, cultural, and artistic entity? How is hip hop understood within the historical, sociocultural, and economic matrices of Korean society? How is hip hop represented in Korean media and popular culture? These are some questions that will guide our conversation on the making of hip hop in South Korea.

Dr. Myoung-Sun Song is an assistant professor in the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures at University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Her research focuses on the representations of race, gender, sexuality, class, and national identity in Korean media and popular culture. She is the author of Hanguk Hip Hop: Global Rap in South Korea (2019, Palgrave Macmillan), the first scholarly book-length study in English or Korean on the subject of Korean hip hop.

If there is anything we can do to make this event accessible to you, please contact us. Please be aware that advance notice is necessary as some accommodations may require more time for the university to arrange.