On July 25, an international pop music mega-star will swoop down upon American Airlines Arena. He’s sold millions of albums and drawn countless screaming fans to his side, and it’s likely you’ve never even heard of him. His name is G-Dragon, and he’s the most popular singer in South Korea.

It might seem perplexing that an artist from a tiny East Asian nation, one that doesn’t even rave about nuclear weapons, could draw enough people to fill the AAA. The reason, as it turns out, has as much to do with politics as music. In the late ’90s, South Korea began to aggressively subsidize its entertainment industry in an attempt to compete with Japan and the United States as a cultural exporter. Along with film and television dramas, the nation flooded money into pop music, funding enormous labels that created dozens of pop groups and drew from the latest international trends in music. By every measure, K-pop and the Hallyu — “Korean Wave” — succeeded in increasing Korean global stature, but they also resulted in some of most exciting popular music being made today.

Before this wave smacks into Miami during G-Dragon’s show, here are a few songs to help you understand what all the fuss is about.

[Omitted parts which are not related to G-Dragon or BIGBANG]

Bigbang, “Bang Bang Bang” (2015)

Girls Generation may have the best song, but Bigbang is the undisputed king of K-pop. They are not subtle about it — the band’s symbol, which you’ll see at any show by them or one of their members, is a golden crown. If you want to know what the Hallyu is all about, it’s right here in one of the behemoth group’s bombastic videos: insane costumes, dynamic dancing, and production values that match, even surpass, those of their Western competitors. And this isn’t even their best song — the group has a massive back catalog, having been active since 2006.

G-Dragon, “Coup d’Etat” (2013)
G-Dragon isn’t simply the biggest star in K-pop, but the most. For his 2013 solo album Coup d’Etat, the ambitious provocateur reached across the globe in search of talent, gaining features from Missy Eliot and Sky Ferreira, and recruiting Diplo and Baauer to assist on the title track’s production. It certainly got him noticed in the West, with positive reviews from MTV and the New York Times. Pitchfork, in a rare appraisal of a foreign pop album, was less kind. Issuing a score of 6.1, Cordan Goble called the album “an intriguing listen, if not an important one.” Decide for yourself whether he’s right or wrong.

Source:

DOUGLAS MARKOWITZ @ Miami New Times