“Rewriting the Résumé”

Mainstream Korean hip-hop performers cite the R&B tradition through sampling and the use of R&B vocals and enhance it through Korean musical strategies that mix multiple genres with hip-hop elements and the use of live instrumentation. Some hip-hop acts emulate the tradition by engaging in “old school” music and using R&B vocals, while others include remixes, samples of non-R&B genres, and the use of non-R&B vocalists. Mainstream Korean hip-hop acts cite limiting and liberating hip-hop tropes in music videos as well. Korean hip-hop artists participate in a globalized R&B tradition by promoting its music aesthetics.

“A Song Calling for You”

Korean pop groups cite the R&B tradition by emulating R&B musical and vocal elements in catchy pop songs and enhance the tradition through Korean music strategies that infuse multiple genres with R&B elements. Korean pop groups emulate the R&B tradition by citing elements of funk, club, and urban R&B. Moreover, Korean and African American producers infuse K-pop with different varieties of R&B. These artists also enhance the R&B tradition by mixing pop genres with R&B within individual songs and over the course of their careers. In music videos, they cite the choreography and styles of African American performance in ways that provide alternatives to Asian stereotypes. This intertextuality is driven by promotions that focus on image and music quality; strategies that mirror those employed by Black American music producers. The combination of dynamic image and quality music production fuels K-pop’s cultural work and global crossover, thereby making it part of a global R&B tradition.

“Listen to the Music”

This chapter defines K-pop with a focus on hybridity that reveals citational practices that draw on African American popular music and are confirmed as authentic by fans functioning as K-pop’s music press. This definition goes beyond “idols,” or Korean performers who sing and dance, to capture the diversity of K-pop artists that share characteristics that transcend genre. Hybridity, K-pop’s most salient characteristic, is largely informed by African American popular music. It reflects intertextuality through the emulation of R&B genres and improvisation spurred by Korean popular music aesthetics that expands those genres. K-pop’s music citational practices are deemed authentic by a transcultural fandom that produces critical cultural production and, in doing so, function as part of the music press for K-pop.

Conclusion

This chapter uses Korean indie groups to reveal the diversity of music under the K-pop umbrella and the ramifications of such diversity for music aesthetics, authenticity, and globalization. Placing K-pop within a global R&B tradition highlights K-pop as a diverse style of music largely informed by African American popular music. It reveals the extent to which Black popular music has informed K-pop. Technology enables fans to access a wide array of K-pop, foster fan communities, and act as critics and arbiters of taste. K-pop’s place in a global R&B tradition also reveals the diversity of global influences, challenging the focus on a generalized West and United States that obscures the impact of African American culture.

“Soul Breeze”

Korean R&B artists cite the R&B tradition by emulating R&B instrumentation and gospel-inflected vocals and enhance the tradition through Korean music strategies that invoke multiple R&B genres and vocal styles. While Korean R&B artists are linked to pop groups through their reliance on R&B vocal styles, Korean R&B artists are more immersed in a variety of R&B genres. Korean R&B groups draw on complex musical arrangements featuring horns as part of a 1960s and 1970s soul music aesthetic. Korean R&B groups also draw on the Black female vocal tradition informed by gospel. At the same time, Korean R&B vocalists invoke multiple Black male vocal styles and multiple genres, including jazz and hip-hop. Through this intertextuality, Korean R&B artists participate in a globalized R&B tradition, expanding it beyond the Black/white binary.