Epik High is our gateway into Korean hip hop (with Tablo)

Switched on Pop

Vox Media Podcast Network

Music Interviews, Music History, Music, Music Commentary

4.6 • 2.7K Ratings

🗓️ 26 January 2021

⏱️ 50 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Epik High are elemental to Korean hip hop. DJ Tukutz, Mithra Jin and Tablo’s underground style boom bap beats with dexterous rapping helped bring this music from its underground roots to a global scale. On their latest release, Epik High Is Here Part I, the textures are subdued but paired with heavy drums and aggressive vocals, a contrast that matches our collective anxiety arising from the pandemic. Charlie speaks with Tablo about the creation of the album, but first first ethnomusicologist Youngdae Kim shares a short history on the development of Korean hip hop. SONGS DISCUSSED Epik High - Rosario, Go, Fly, Map the Soul, Harajuku Days, Born Hater, Lesson Zero, Based On A True Story, Leica, Wish You Were Seo Taiji and Boys - I Know Verbal Jint - Overclass MORE Read Youngdae Kim and T.K. Park’s “A Brief History of Korean Hip-hop” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Switched On Pop. I'm Songwriter Charlie Harding and I'm Musicologist Nate Sloan.
0:17.0	One of our nearest resolutions was that we want to dive deeper into the world of K-pop
0:23.1	and Korean hip-hop. And the star is aligned because today we have the opportunity to speak
0:30.5	with Teblow, the leader of the group Epic High, who are one of the most influential and
0:38.4	innovative groups in Korean hip-hop. Nate, are you familiar with Epic High?
0:42.9	No, I'm not familiar with Epic High. They're like, booting or BC boys are to hip-hop in the United
0:50.3	States. They're elemental and over the last week I have been doing this rabbit hole
0:56.7	through their catalog and it's stunning. Let me play you a single off their new record, Epic High
1:02.9	is here part one. This is their track from Zarya.
1:33.4	Okay, that is straight fire. Yeah, you've got your stank face on. I'm feeling lots of
1:41.8	feelings. I mean, I'm loving the transition from like Walt's time into this 4-4 hip-hop group.
1:49.2	One, two, three, one, two, three, and then the beat drops and it's like, that's really cool.
1:54.8	Yeah, it's got a really aggressive beat. It's Teblow's flow is out of control.
2:01.5	Totally the kind of melding of both Korean and English lyrics, but so kind of rapid fire that
2:08.4	you don't even necessarily know when it's changing. It's pretty fantastic.
2:14.1	So we can go really deep into this music, but the reality is you and I just really don't know
2:21.0	Korean hip-hop that well. And before I go into my conversation with Teblow, I thought it would be
2:27.0	valuable for both of us and for listeners who aren't as clued into this music to start off
2:32.5	with a very cursory, high-level Korean hip-hop 101. That tutorial would be much appreciated for
2:40.5	a neo-fight, such as myself. Okay, great. So I want to share with you a conversation I had with one
2:45.3	of the leading scholars of Korean hip-hop. Hi, my name is Youngde Kim, Music Critic, and
2:50.9	Ethnomusicologist. So Youngde Kim has a PhD in Ethnomusicology from the University of Washington,
	...

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