There’s more to Korean music than K-pop: ‘It doesn’t all sound like Gangnam Style’

In the last few months, the Korean music scene has become a hot topic in Western media. Youth culture publications such as Dazed or i-D compile lists of top k-pop videos, k-pop artists you should know, and Korean female rapper CL even made it to a print edition of Dazed. However, this image painted by Western media is somewhat incomplete, if not distorted. With few exceptions such as the internet sensation Keith Ape (the guy behind ‘It G Ma’), most attention is paid to the cleverly marketed world of carefully choreographed and styled idol groups.

While most of the Korean music scene is ruled by a small group of large entertainment companies, that does not mean that there are no undercurrents that try to do things differently. The artist collective Rockbottom, who recently performed a sold-out live in London’s Camden Town together with Marvel J from the Daenamhyup crew, are a good example. They came with no choreographed dances, no make-up, and not even a manager. Clad in clothing by the likes of Undercover and Supreme, they brought a raw mix of rap and electronic music. It was an honest performance by people who started from the (rock) bottom and came here on their own legs (well, almost).

Image © Rockbottom

Supreme Boi from Rockbottom and Marvel J kindly agreed to give us a short interview and revealed what it feels like to be an underground hip hop artist in a world where a pretty face is often appreciated more than one’s lyrics or flow.

The Tab: How does it feel for you as underground hip hop artists to come all the way to London?

Supreme Boi: We were really surprised. We are really thankful to be invited to London. It was our first stage outside of Korea, so we are really happy.

Marvel J: It’s my first time travelling abroad, so it’s very scary and exciting. When I perform in Korea, after the performance ends, I go out and I’m in Hongdae, but here when I went out to get some fresh air after the performance, I was in London. It was the best experience in my life.

The Tab: Recently, Show Me The Money (a Korean rap survival TV reality show) and has become very popular in Korea. What do you think of that? Do you think it can help underground artists?

Supreme Boi: Recently hip hop has become really popular [in Korea], and there is also a bigger number of people who don’t like hip hop. I think that’s good, but on the other hand SMTM influenced me in other ways, for instance it’s now difficult to make money [through hip hop]. But I think what’s going on now is a natural progress.

The Tab: Why did you personally decide to be active in the underground scene rather than going to a big company? And what was the reason for creating Rockbottom?

Supreme Boi: I think [we did] these two things for the same reason. We just wanted to do what we want to do and enjoy doing it. We wanted to have fun.

Marvel J: I did it to party with pretty girls (laughs).

Many thanks to Supreme Boi and Marvel J for their time answering the questions. Also special thanks to Anique Catlin-Joubert for assistance during the interview.

You can checkout Rockbottom on their Soundcloud or Instagram.