Any fan of K-pop would be able to tell you that the fundamental foundation of the music is directly related to Black American R&B, and HipHop. SM Entertainment founder Lee Soo Man, known as the Godfather of the K-pop, admitted that Black American music and the trainee system used by Motown Records founder Barry Gordy … More Connected Through Music: How a HBCU Helped Shape Korean Cultural History
On March 20, 2026, BTS most anticipated comeback with their 5th studio album Arirang was released. This would be their first studio album in more than 6 years following a pause due to the 2020 global pandemic, and then an official hiatus due to compulsory military service. In between the two, they released a string … More My Opinionated Rant: Expectation vs Reality: Arirang and BTS
There has always been a greater conversation about appropriation vs. appreciation, a conversation that I find to be important, yet exhausting. There are instances where there is a clear line of what can be considered an inappropriate representation of someone else’s culture. Whether it is to mock or cosplay to appear cool or hip is … More Clothing Beyond Fashion: Aligning Outside of Your Culture
Author Talk: A Conversation with Elondra Birchfield author of Purple Hearts: Maya’s Journey With BTS We all have an origin story of how we started our journey as fans of K-pop and Korean culture. For some, it was a way to connect to a culture and community that we were already familiar with. The journey … More A Journey into Becoming ARMY and Beyond
*Disclaimer- parts of this article briefly mentions thoughts of or attempts at suicide. If this may be triggering, please proceed with caution. * Since getting into anime a few years ago the biggest debate I have seen on nerd spaces is this long and drawn-out discussion about watching anime through subtitles (Subs) or through English … More Dubs vs Subs: How Language Dubbing Can Take Away the Experience and Intentions of Korean Media
Stopping the Repeat of History On December 3rd, 2024, at approximately 10:30 PM KST South Korean President Yoon Sik Yeol announced on national television that he was enacting his Presidental power and placing the country into martial law. Merriam Webster Dictionary describes martial law as the law administered by military forces that is invoked by a … More “What about my oppa?” K-Pop Fans Concerns During South Korea’s Brief Period of Martial Law
In September, a close friend of mine, who is in the U.S. Army, was deployed oversees over 6,000 miles away. His wife, one of my best friends knew for almost two years he was going to deploy. However, when he finally got the final orders it was still a huge blow. Well, this is how … More It’s Happening: BTS Enlistment
For you K-pop stans this Ticketmaster kerfuffle has been an on going issue for more than a decade. However more recently Ticketmaster and their questionable practices have only been exacerbated by the pandemic and loosely regulated standards of practice for the ticketing industry. In addition with the use of “bots“, a computer program that runs automated tasks … More The Saga that is Ticketmaster
On July 12th I had the opportunity to finally check off an item on my music bucket list and see Korean R&B artist and Voice Korea 2020 winner Kim Ji-Hyun, better known as G Soul (aka Golden). I discovered his beautiful soulful voice in 2018, when I was going through my Korean R&B journey. Out … More Soul From Seoul: The Underappreciated Genre of Korean R&B
As I listen to J-Hope’s new solo album Jack in the Box and read English translations, something occurs to me. What if all the accolades, the number one albums and singles, all the chart topping and record breaking, history making was just too much. What if all the excessive album buying campaigns and purposely purchasing … More Here Me Out: Unpopular Opinion-Can extreme fan support be detrimental.
The Melanin Ajumma 