K-pop began in 1992 with one electric hip-hop performance
K-pop as we know it wouldn’t exist without democracy and television — specifically, South Korea’s
reformation of its democratic government in 1987, with its accompanying modernization and lightening of censorship, and the effect this change had on television.
Prior to the establishment of the nation’s
Sixth Republic, there were only two broadcast networks in the country, and they largely controlled what music South Koreans listened to; singers and musicians weren’t much more than tools of the networks. Networks introduced the public to musical stars primarily through weekend music talent shows. Radio existed but, like the TV networks, was under tight state control. Independent music production didn’t really exist, and rock music was controversial and
subject to banning; musicians and songs were primarily introduced to the public through the medium of the televised talent show, and radio served as little more than a subsidiary platform for entertainers who succeeded on those weekend TV competitions.
Before the liberalization of South Korean media in the late ‘80s, the music produced by broadcast networks was exclusively either slow ballads or
“trot,” a Lawrence Welk-ish fusion of traditional music with old pop standards. After 1987, though, the country’s radio broadcasting expanded rapidly, and South Koreans became familiar with more varieties of music from outside the country, including contemporary American music.
But TV was still the country’s dominant, centralized form of media: As of 1992, national TV networks had penetrated
above 99 percent of South Korean homes, and viewership was highest on the weekends, when the talent shows took place. These televised talent shows were crucial in introducing music groups to South Korean audiences; they still have an enormous cultural impact and remain the single biggest factor in a South Korean band’s success.
As Moonrok editor Hannah Waitt points out in her
excellent series on the history of K-pop, K-pop is unusual as a genre because it has a definitive start date, thanks to a band called Seo Taiji and Boys. Seo Taiji had previously been a member of the South Korean heavy metal band
Sinawe, which was itself a brief but hugely influential part of the development of Korean rock music in the late ‘80s. After the band broke up, he turned to hip-hop and recruited two stellar South Korean dancers, Yang Hyun-suk and Lee Juno, to join him as backups in a group dubbed Seo Taiji and Boys. On April 11, 1992, they performed their single “Nan Arayo (I Know)” on a talent show:
Not only did the Boys
not win the talent show, but the judges gave the band the
lowest score of the evening. But immediately after the song debuted, “I Know” went on to top South Korea’s singles charts for a record-smashing 17 weeks, which would stand for more than 15 years as the longest No. 1 streak in the country’s history.
“I Know” represented the first time modern American-style pop music had been fused with South Korean culture. Seo Taiji and Boys were innovators who challenged norms around musical styles, song topics, fashion, and censorship. They sang about teen angst and the social pressure to succeed within a grueling education system, and insisted on creating their own music and writing their own songs outside of the manufactured network environment.
Don’t ask what makes a K-pop song. Ask what makes a K-pop performer.
There are three things that make K-pop such a visible and unique contributor to the realm of pop music: exceptionally high-quality performance (especially dancing), an extremely polished aesthetic, and an “in-house” method of studio production that churns out musical hits the way assembly lines churn out cars.
Hip-hop tends to be a
dominant part of the K-pop sound, particularly among male groups, a trend that has opened up the genre to criticism for appropriation. South Korea grapples with
a high degree of cultural racism, and recent popular groups have
come under fire for
donning blackface, appropriating
Native American iconography, and
much more. Still, K-pop has increasingly embraced diversity in recent years, with black members
joining K-pop groups and duo Coco Avenue putting out a
bilingual single in 2017.
Last but not least, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention South Korea’s emergent
indie music scene, which includes a thriving crop of independent rap, hip-hop, and, increasingly,
R&B artists, as well as a host of grassroots artists who’ve
made waves on SoundCloud.
@ 1:10 dude using the Migos flow in Korean. 
