Unless you've been living without wifi, television, or any access to the world at large for the past several years, you probably have at least dabbled in the world of K-Pop by now.
K-Pop, simply put, is Korean pop music. But in reality, it's so much more than that. It's an art form, a spectacle, a phenomenon, and a multi-billion dollar industry. K-Pop groups eat, sleep, and breathe their craft, dancing more skillfully than just about any western group and releasing pop songs so catchy that you don't need to speak Korean to get the words stuck in your head. But with so many K-Pop groups out there, is it possible to say which group is the absolute best? Well, we'll leave that up to you. Vote below for your favorite K-Pop group!
EXO
EXO is made up of nine members: Xiumin, Suho, Lay, Baekhyun, Chen, Chanyeol, D.O., Kai and Sehun. SM Entertainment formed EXO in 2011 and debuted in 2012. Their music is a mix of hip-hop, rap, EDM, and R&B, and they release music in Korean, Mandarin, and Japanese.
BLACKPINK
This incredible South Korean girl group was formed by YG Entertainment, debuting in 2016 with single album Square One, which included "Whistle," their first number one hit. The group is comprised of Jisoo, Jennie, Rosé, and Lisa.
BTS
Jin, Suga, J-Hope, RM, Jimin, V, and Jungkook form perhaps the most popular K-Pop group: Bangtan Boys AKA BTS. This 7 member group formed in Seoul in 2013, and have since gone on to help popularize K-Pop across the world.
MONSTA X
MONSTA X is composed of seven members: Shownu, Wonho, Minhyuk, Kihyun, Hyungwon, Joohoney[2], and I.M.
From South Korea and assembled by Starship Entertainment, the boy band was formed through the 2015 reality show No.Mercy.
TWICE
This group of talented musicians was formed in South Korea by JYP Entertainment through the 2015 reality show Sixteen. The nine members of the group are Nayeon, Jeongyeon, Momo, Sana, Jihyo, Mina, Dahyun, Chaeyoung, and Tzuyu. The group debuted on October 20, 2015, with The Story Begins.
TVXQ (DBSK)
This duo, whose name stands for Tong Vfang Xien Qi, is comprised of U-Know Yunho and Max Changmin. They offer a wide multicultural appeal, releasing songs in many different languages. They are known as Tohoshinki for their Japanese releases, and are sometimes referred to as DBSK, an abbreviation of their Korean name Dong Bang Shin Ki which roughly translates to "Rising Gods of the East."
GOT7
Got7 is a South Korean boy band formed by JYP Entertainment, composed of JB, Mark, Jackson, Jinyoung, Youngjae, BamBam, and Yugyeom. They've been around since January 2014 when they released their first EP, Got It? They're known for their incredible stage performances which incorporate martial arts.
SEVENTEEN
Members of this boy band—which debuted in 2015 with Pledis Entertainment—are Woozi, Wonwoo, Vernon, Mingyu, Jun, Hoshi, The8, Joshua, Jeonghan, Dino, S.Coups, and Seungkwan. This group is known for self-producing, as many of the members are actively involved in songwriting, choreographing, and producing their own work.
TXT
Tomorrow X Together (TXT) is a South Korean boy band formed by Big Hit Entertainment. The group consists of 5 members: Yeonjun, Soobin, Beomgyu, Taehyun, and Huening Kai.
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Music Features
On This Day: Hip-Hop Forever Changed America
Happy birthday to the world's biggest genre
08.11.2020
On this day in 1973, Clive Campbell, the Jamaican-American "selector" known as DJ Kool Herc, hosted a "back to school jam" at 1520 Sedgewick Avenue in the Boogie Down Bronx of New York City.
Armed with a booming sound system and reggae beats, Herc– a shortened nickname for "Hercules"– commanded insatiable audiences across the South Bronx with his unique looping technique called the "Merry-Go Round." "[I knew that] they were waiting for this particular break," Herc later said, "and I got a couple of records that got the same break up in it. I wonder how it would be if I put them all together."
<p>The subtle trick elongated the audience's favorite parts of their favorite funk records and kept the energy high. The widened section was known as "the break" or "the get down." "The beauty of Herc's set-up was that once he would find that section of the record, he would create a loop live in front of the crowd using the two turntables and the crossfader on the mixer," wrote <em><a href="https://www.complex.com/music/2017/08/how-august-11-became-hip-hop-birthday" target="_blank">Complex.</a></em></p><p><div id="ezoic-pub-ad-placeholder-632"></div>
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<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="Add Photo Caption...">Kool DJ Herc, Merry Go Round</small>
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<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hw4H2FZjfpo&t=2s" target="_blank">www.youtube.com</a>
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</p><p>The method of the "Merry-Go-Round" quickly became universal among the Bronx's other pioneer DJ's. DJ Afrika Bambaataa, who headed the legendary hip-hop unit Universal Zulu Nation, added to the "breakbeats" in his own way, <a href="https://www.wnyc.org/story/89709-south-bronx-hip-hop-year-zero/" target="_blank">infusing the sounds of salsa, West Indian music, and rock and roll.</a> His 1982 track "Planet Rock" was one of his biggest crowd-pleasers and sampled an electric piano from the German quartet Kraftwerk. Meanwhile, Theodore Livingston, otherwise known as Grand Wizzard Theodore, also began toying with "breakbeats" and in turn invented what is now known as "scratching," which helped the records bounce and sound more percussive.<br></p><p><div id="ezoic-pub-ad-placeholder-633"> </div>
<!-- End Ezoic - incontent1 - mid_content --></p><p>Then came the almighty Joseph Sadler, better known as Grandmaster Flash, who founded the Furious Five, the first-ever hip-hop group. Together, they incorporated poetic rhymes alongside Flash's slick instrumental breaks. Best known for their funky track "The Message," Flash invented cutting, which involved playing the same song on two separate turntables and snapping back and forth between them to create an entirely new record (he also invented the now-iconic backspin).</p><p><div id="ezoic-pub-ad-placeholder-635"> </div>
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<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="Add Photo Caption...">Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five - The Message (Official Video)</small>
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<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PobrSpMwKk4" target="_blank">www.youtube.com</a>
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</script></center><strong></strong><p></p><p>But what evolved from the South Bronx in 1973 has now transformed American culture as a whole. <strong>Hip-hop has sunk its teeth into everything </strong><strong>from dance to fashion </strong><strong>and has wholly redefined American culture in the mere 47 years it's been around. It has single-handedly become the most impactful genre to ever exist in music–and not merely because it sounds dope.</strong></p><p><strong></strong>Still, despite mainstream's embrace and occasional exploitation, hip-hop has remained, first and foremost, a platform for hustlers, philosophers, and critical thinkers. "Hip-hop as a musical and global cultural form forces us to think critically about what we define as valuable knowledge, who we recognize as knowledge producers, and how knowledge can be created and shared," wrote <a href="https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/arts-blog/cultural-significance-hip-hop#:~:text=The%20study%20and%20archiving%20of,'&text=Hip%20hop%20is%20not%20a%20new%20subject%20of%20study%20in%20Oxford." target="_blank"><em>The University of Oxford</em></a>.</p><p><div id="ezoic-pub-ad-placeholder-636"> </div>
<!-- End Ezoic - incontent22 - long_content --></p><p>The genre has overtly challenged authoritative perspectives and always shed light on the urban struggles for the underrepresented. In turn, it's birthed an incalculable number of storytellers and urban prophets, who all relentlessly grind for their city and their family. They fight to educate the masses and inspire other underrepresented people to succeed against all the odds.</p><p><div id="ezoic-pub-ad-placeholder-637"> </div>
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<span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="70d3c6b1ae217a3f9d6cc35695e0fda2"><iframe type="lazy-iframe" data-runner-src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/GT9IWNxHupc?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span>
<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="Add Photo Caption...">Freddie Gibbs & The Alchemist - Scottie Beam featuring Rick Ross (Official Video)</small>
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<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GT9IWNxHupc" target="_blank">www.youtube.com</a>
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</p><p>"Visualizing the realism of life in actuality, f*ck who's the baddest, a person's status depends on salary, and my mentality is money-oriented," raps <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEwSfbE9IXc" target="_blank">NY emcee A.Z.</a> as he reflects on the morbidity of life. On his legendary feature on Nas's 1994 hit "Life's a Bitch," A.Z. uses a double entendre to prophesize that life can only feel real to a person if they fully immerse themselves in their existence. </p><p>"The revolution is the genocide...my execution might be televised," Freddie Gibbs raps on 2020's "Scottie Beam." In just a few bars, he dissects the morbid cycle police killings and how "the revolution" won't happen until more people of color die. "Cash rules everything around me," Method Man chants, frustrated, on Wu-Tang Clan's 1993 hit "C.R.E.A.M." as he reflects <a href="https://pitchfork.com/thepitch/wu-tang-clan-cream-cash-rules-everything-around-me-misunderstood/" target="_blank">on the frustrations of capitalism</a>.<br></p><p><div id="ezoic-pub-ad-placeholder-638"> </div>
<!-- End Ezoic - incontent33 - longer_content --></p><p><strong>For the last 47 years, hip-hop has always documented the American underbelly.</strong> Now, as the squeaky-clean revisionist history of America seems to further erode in 2020, it's important to remember where we heard the truth from first, because it definitely wasn't from a textbook.</p><h4>Want to Read More?</h4><h4><a href="https://www.popdust.com/5-albums-to-help-get-out-head-2645826593.html" target="_blank">5 Relaxing Rap Albums to Get You Out of Your Head</a></h4><h4><a href="https://www.popdust.com/5-albums-to-help-get-out-head-2645826593.html" target="_blank"></a><a href="https://www.popdust.com/medhane-interview-full-circle-2645576544.html" target="_blank">Interview: Medhane's Moment Has Finally Arrived</a></h4><h4><a href="https://www.popdust.com/the-most-annoying-love-songs-of-the-early-2000s-2646942641.html" target="_blank">The Most Annoying Love Songs of the Early 2000s</a></h4>
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Girls' Generation just can't stop snagging superstar boyfriends these days. First Yoona started dating Korean golden boy Lee Seung-gi, then Sooyoung revealed she was dating actor Jung Kyung-ho, and in April, Tiffany and 2PM's resident bad boy Nickhun went public with their relationship. Now it's Taeyeon's turn, with the Girls' Generation vocalist revealed to be secretly seeing none other than EXO's Baekhyun.
Taeyeon, 25, and Baekhyun, 22, were busted by Korean media outlet Dispatch while on a secret date in the front seat of Taeyeon's luxury Mercedes. According to reports, they've been together about four months now, confirming long-standing rumours in the group's respective fandoms that the pair are a couple.
As far as Korean celebrity couples go, this one is pretty big. Girls' Generation and EXO are probably the two biggest pop groups in Asia right now, with both groups having expanded well outside of Korea to find huge success in lucrative overseas markets like Japan and China. Most K-pop couples keep their relationships private due to public backlash (primarily stemming from the media and overzealous fans), but given Taeyeon and EXO's high standing in the Korean entertainment industry, they should be able to weather this without receiving too much criticism.
Good luck you crazy kids. You're gonna need it!
[Via Netizen Buzz]
