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Performing Post-Racial Asianness: K-Pop's Appropriation of Hip-Hop Culture

Article in Congress on Research in Dance Conference Proceedings · September 2014

DOI: 10.1017/cor.2014.17

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Performing Post-Racial Asianness: K-Pop's Appropriation of Hip-Hop Culture

Chuyun Oh

Congress on Research in Dance Conference Proceedings / Volume 2014 / September 2014, pp 121 - 125
DOI: 10.1017/cor.2014.17, Published online: 23 September 2014

Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S204912551400017X

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Chuyun Oh (2014). Performing Post-Racial Asianness: K-Pop's Appropriation of Hip-Hop Culture. Congress on Research in
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Performing Post-Racial Asianness: K-Pop’s
Appropriation of Hip-Hop Culture

Chuyun Oh

Emergence of K-Pop

K
-pop, which emerged in the mid-1990s, is a hybridized music genre integrating
Asian and Western pop music. K-pop integrates styles and dance movements
from pop culture from all over the world. It certainly includes elements from
Japanese pop, American pop, hip-hop, R&B, rock and roll, and electronic
music (Huat and Iwabuchi 2008; Kim 2012). The K-pop dancers also employ movements
and steps from hip-hop, musical dance, American pop dance, modern dance, traditional
martial arts, folk dance, tap dance, swing, jazz, and even balletic movements. Astonishing
dance music performed by young K-pop idols is surely one of the main characteristics that
emblematize K-pop. Primarily distributed through the Internet, K-pop has been very viral
in East Asia and becomes visible in Western countries. Music conglomerates have system-
atically trained and groomed K-pop idols, not only in singing but also in dancing, acting,
and speaking foreign languages in order to target global markets. K-pop is often charac-
terized by its dance-driven performance.

As dance historians have argued, since the moving body embodies one’s culture and his-
tory, it actively produces knowledge that is transmitted through performance (Albright
1997; Desmond 2001; Taylor 2003). In her book Choreographing Difference: The Body
and Identity in Contemporary Dance (1997), Ann Cooper Albright wrote that “physical
bodies are both shaped by and resistant to cultural representation of identity . . . cultural
identities are negotiated and embodied” (xiv, xiii). This paper looks at how the dancing
body in K-pop embodies, represents, and carries the historical as well as cultural intersec-
tion in a global context.

This paper particularly looks at Kwon Ji Yong, who is better known by his stage name
G-Dragon (GD). GD is one of the members of the boy band Big Bang. He is one of
the most popular K-pop singers in East Asia. He has been groomed at YG
Entertainment, one of the biggest music labels in Korea. There are many music agencies
that promote different music styles; YG Entertainment is famous for hip-hop influenced
music style. (I am saying hip-hop influenced because they do not define themselves as
hip-hop artists, and they also adopt many different types of music genres from folk
song, ballad, electronic, rock and roll, etc.) For instance, although GD has collaborated
with American rappers such as Missy Elliott and Ludacris, his music style and performance

CHUYUN OH • 2014 CORD PROCEEDINGS 121

 are not limited to hip-hop. There are underground hip-hop artists who probably look
more similar to African American hip-hop artists, but my paper only focuses on main-
stream K-pop artists who selectively appropriate and modify hip-hop. For one of his recent
albums, entitled Coup D’état, he painted his face with black, red, and white to symbolically
express the idea of protest or revolution, and the colors were the artist’s own personal pre-
ference. But some of his American audience misunderstood and thought that he was mak-
ing fun of the Trayvon Martin case. YG Entertainment, the company that produced and
groomed GD, responded that the whole thing was a “huge misunderstanding” and “com-
pletely wrong and taken out of context” (Sahar 2013). This case opens up critical questions
about cross-cultural (mis)understanding and how bodily representations can be differently
understood depending on the cultural context. GD is one of the emblematic figures who
can represent the racial and gender hybridity of K-pop, which will be further elaborated.
My research investigates GD due to his performances, which cross boundaries, to see how
his body and performance embody the different ways of understanding contemporary
Korean-ness in a global context.

American Hip-Hop and Mainstream Representation

In her work “Hip Hop, Mass Media & Racial Storytelling in the Age of Obama,” Tricia
Rose (2012) explores how U.S. mainstream hip-hop has been negated as a mere reproduc-
tion of negative stereotypes of black masculinity, despite hip-hop’s subversive nature,
which can represent oppressed groups’ voices. For Rose, since the 1990s, hip-hop has
been commercialized as a form of heterosexist, misogynist, and violent hypersexual
black masculinity along with the imagery of emotionally and stylistically excessive and
exaggerated blackness, which stigmatizes the African American masculinity as a gangster
image. If racism orients “white-supremacist-capitalist-patriarchy” (hooks 1992), it is likely
that the “authentic” blackness in hip-hop is portrayed as violent and misogynist gangsters.
Hip-hop musicians are often involved in this disenfranchisement because this makes them
seem more “authentic.” For them, a political fight often means no profits. Indeed, African
American rappers, such as 2 Chainz (“Used 2”), Drake (“Hold On, We’re Going Home”),
Pusha T (“Nosetalgia”), Tyga (“Don’t Hate Tha Playa”), and Frank Ocean (“Pyramids”),
reproduce stereotypical black masculinity. Their music videos are often featured at dark
underground clubs, bars, or working class cities. Their lyrics often include slang, some-
times to make social commentary, but also contain sexist connotations. Rappers are gen-
erally clad in black costumes, and props, such as guns or fake blood, are also staged. The
movements of female back dancers in their music videos are often limited to “twerking”
hip movements.

In his music video “One of a Kind,” G-Dragon directly borrows some of the elements of
hip-hop. His music is influenced by rap and consists of spoken, chanted, rhyming lyrics.
Some of his steps and movements are also influenced by the grounded hip-hop movement
with exaggerated, strong, heavy hand gestures. Pelvic thrust is another move influenced by
hip-hop, which probably allows him to remasculinize his persona. Bodily accessories, such
as tattoos (although fake), a hip-hop style hat, and gold chains are also shown. Graffiti is
used as a backdrop, with backup dancers who are clad in striped prison uniforms. He also
employs some misogyny. Female black dancers are clad in military uniform–influenced
black leotards wearing police hats and black sunglass. Since they are all clad in the same

122 2014 CORD PROCEEDINGS • CHUYUN OH

costumes and move in the same ways, not revealing their faces or individuality, the dancers
are dehumanized to some extent and can be more easily objectified. It turns the audience’s
attention to their bare thigh while they are twerking their hips, albeit in a moderate way.
The appropriation of hip-hop, thus, provides a space where female bodies are sexually
objectified, while GD can be more masculinized, which potentially serves to maintain
the patriarchal status quo.

Reappropriating Hip-Hop
Despite the adaptation of rap music along with masculine gestures and misogynist
aspects, G-Dragon localizes hip-hop by selectively including or excluding certain
elements. In his music video, “Crayon,” he remains highly effeminate. His body is slen-
der, tiny, and slight. His face is also highly groomed, polished, and has very smooth,
good-looking skin. He often sings the songs with a high-pitched, feminine or babyish
voice. The lyrics are not necessarily limited to social commentary. In fact, most of his
song lyrics are about his own love story or the artist’s self-actualization. In one moment,
he moves like a puppet kicking his leg to the front while tapping his shoulders with his
hands. He moves back and forth with quick, cheerful, aerobics-influenced steps while
bending his elbows and flipping his hands. He also cross-dresses as a woman. The cam-
era closes in on the back of a woman with typical long blond hair who is wearing a tight
mini dress. Once the camera zooms in, and as she turns back, it turns out the woman is
GD. He giggles, sneering at the camera. The overall image of the video is bright, bubbly,
colorful, and eye-catching, with artificially adorned backdrops. Therefore, G-Dragon
deliberately takes off the dark and often criminalized image of hip-hop, while situating
it in a highly cute, bright, and mischievous context. In this way, he desemiotizes the
stereotypical and often criminalized image of hip-hop through his own utilization of
the genre.

Then how do we distinguish his appropriation of hip-hop from those of white Americans
or Asian Americans? I think we should consider the different sociohistorical contexts that
un/consciously inform our understanding of cultural appropriation. White American pop
singers’ appropriation of African American culture, such as the works of Madonna,
Eminem, or more recently, Miley Cyrus, have been criticized. bell hooks (1992), for
instance, attests that Madonna, as a racially unmarked body, exoticizes and exploits
black culture through her music videos. K-pop performers’ appropriation of hip-hop
often prompts outrage among Western audiences who believe that K-pop hip-hop is a
form of contemporary minstrelsy. Coming back to G-Dragon’s blackface controversy,
however, something is missing in this response. If GD were an Asian American, he
would be more knowledgeable about the minstrelsy tradition, and he would likely avoid
the black makeup. Koreans, however, do not have minstrelsy tradition like the U.S.
does, nor have Koreans been colonizers. They are not necessarily knowledgeable about
the history of African American slavery and racial politics or representational issues in
the U.S. The American audience’s expectation reveals that Korean identity is likely con-
flated with Asian American, or their identity as Korean is invisible from the gaze of
American audiences. Cultural signifiers or symbols can be interpreted differently depend-
ing on the culture. Blackface, for instance, can signify a different meaning other than min-
strelsy outside of the U.S. Therefore, GD’s appropriation of hip-hop is not a contemporary

CHUYUN OH • 2014 CORD PROCEEDINGS 123

 minstrelsy because he does not belong to the historical continuum of racialization of
African American-ness in the U.S.

In his widely cited book The Location of Culture (2004), Homi Bhabha explains that
hybridity derives from colonial mimicry. Colonial mimicry is “the desire for a reformed,
recognizable Other, as a subject of a difference that is almost the same, but not quite”
(122). For Bhabha, colonized culture often imitates the colonizer’s culture to become
“like” the colonizer. This mimicry results in a certain type of cultural ambiguity, as
their hybridized culture is “almost the same, but not quite” compared to the colonizer’s
culture they initially imitated. K-pop stars’ appropriation of American culture is not “post-
colonial mimicry,” considering its hybridity. K-pop is a hybridized form in which the per-
formers create racial ambiguity as well as gender fluidity. It is true that K-pop was under
the influence of American and Japanese pop until 1990. Since the 2000s, however, K-pop
has transformed and become more hybridized. K-pop now has its own distinguished aes-
thetics, and K-pop stars no longer emulate American pop stars but imitate their senior
K-pop stars. Rather, authentic representation can be a myth—a product constituted by
racial hierarchy (Oh 2014).

Versatile Boundary Crossing

In his music videos such as “Crooked” or “Fantastic Baby,” G-Dragon not only puts on
whiteness but also enacts a myriad of cultural markers such as punk rock, disco in the
1970s, Korean traditional costume, or any of several idiosyncratic and futuristic markers
that do not quite signify any cultural root. Through his chameleonic appropriation and
boundary crossing, he does not simply aim to be “like the colonizer.” Rather, his identity
switching creates complex layers of racial and gender hybridity, and speaks to global capital-
ism’s exploitation of other cultures, which Marwan Kraidy (2005) calls a “corporate transcul-
turalism,” a profit-driven strategy that systematically exploits elements from multiculturalism.
This potentially subverts the hegemonic notion of “whiteness” that has represented otherness
due to their racially “unmarked” bodies, which Susan Manning (2004) calls the “represen-
tational privilege of white.” Thus, GD performs whiteness/non-whiteness, blackness/non-
blackness, Asian-ness/non-Asian-ness, and Korean-ness/non-Korean-ness, whose perform-
ance does not fulfill black/white/yellow racialized or gendered binary in the West. Asian
Americans in the U.S. are racialized in certain ways, and their bodies have been constantly
haunted by racial stereotypes (J. Lee 1997; R. Lee 1999; Wong 2010). GD’s versatile
boundary-crossing, however, cannot be racialized in the ways that Asian Americans have
been racialized in U.S., which I would identify post-Asian-ness as non-racialization.

YG Entertainment recently released a new documentary program entitled “WIN” (“Who Is

Next”). The agency opens public dance competitions for trainees in the agency. Two boy
groups, named group A and group B, were chosen and participated in the show, and the
final winner had a chance to debut as the next K-pop star. Throughout the episodes, the audi-
ence can see how much sincere bodily endeavor the young practitioners spend in order to
“embody” hip-hop style, including movement, gesture, fashion, rap style, etc. Obviously,
the young boys enjoyed learning, practicing, embodying, and finally performing their
hip-hop–influenced performances onstage. Then, how do we separate cultural appropriation
from history? Some practices, such as yoga, belly dance, or classical ballet, go global as a

124 2014 CORD PROCEEDINGS • CHUYUN OH

 “bodily practice.” One cannot assume that the practice is free from hegemony and global
power dynamic. Belly dance could be seen as oriental sexual fantasy in the West, while clas-
sical ballet might owe its popularity in Asian culture due to the dance’s connotation on aes-
thetics from “the First World.” Nevertheless, the practitioners, including performers, students,
and dancers, often do not think or consider the historical root. More often, they simply enjoy
the pleasure they potentially get from the bodily practice. The question, whether we should
value the historical root of a cultural practice or a participant’s bodily enjoyment, still remains.

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© 2014, Chuyun Oh

CHUYUN OH is a Ph.D. candidate in Performance as Public Practice (PPP) at The

University of Texas at Austin. As an award-wining artist and Fulbright scholar, she has
worked as a book editor, filmmaker, art critic, and performance studies scholar. Her
research focuses on performance as a site of identity formation including the construction
of race, gender, sexuality, and nationality.

CHUYUN OH • 2014 CORD PROCEEDINGS 125

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