K POP MEETS HIP HOP. THAT'S WHATS UP!

Op! Op! Op! Op! Op! Opa Gangnam style! And the world started jumping to the Kangaroo dance, PSY! Hmmm! ''Sighs''  What can i say? We all know what this South Korean did to our spirit everytime we heard the Gagnam Style song blasting, presently rated as one of the most played song in the world, reaching over a billion views on YouTube, this song is obviously the most successful song of 2012. Yeah! Other major Artists around the world did their best no doubt, but none could contend with the ''highly inflammable'' passion behind the Gangnam Style sensation, i personally witnessed a 2 years old child singing this song and trying to bust some Gangnam moves, while i have also seen numerous videos of different races trying to get down Kangaroo style, even the UN Secretary General was trying out the move, i am sure that Uncle Obama has tried this move in front of his mirror or maybe to entertain the first lady and their kids.

But now lets get to the reason why we are here, the most remarkable thing about this song is that it is not Hip Hop, it is not Rock, its not Techno its not Pop and no it is not Electro music, it is however a genre of music that combines all the aforementioned genre to become K  POP!  Yeah  K Pop the musical style that originated from South Korea, K Pop stands for Korean Pop music and subculture, the contemporary K Pop music is noting like the regular Pop music we normally hear, it is far more dimensional in style than the Pop in its naming represents. Traces of this genre dates back to the 60s but it started gaining attention in the 90s when it started embracing some hip hop culture to its style, the popularity kept increasing spreading across Asia until PSY finally took it to another level with the release of Gangnam Style, a lot of people think PSY is an over nite success, but this dude has been kicking it since 1999! if you go on YouTube, you will find old music videos of  PSY doing what he knows how to do best, singing and rapping. there is no doubt that rap music and hip hop in general played the most vital role in the rise of  K POP, evident in the song Gangnam Style where PSY combines rapping and singing to make the song a typical K POP style.

After the success of  Gangnam style, it became more evidently clear that modern day K POP is a major brain child of  Hip Hop when PSY requested to team up with our very own Hip Hop/Rap veteran MC HAMMER! To perform a live remix of the Gangnam Style, fusing it with MC Hammer's 1991 Hip Hop hit ''2 Legit 2 Quit'' at the prestigious 40th American Music Awards in 2012. They say ''When music nice, you play it twice'' Yeah! The performance was so captivating they had to do it again on New Year's Eve at the New York City Thames Square December 31st  2012. The Mashup has since been released on iTunes. Now lets talk about the collaboration of these men, according Hammer, the hook up was arranged by PSY's manager, the question is what inspired this thought ? weather its PSY or his manager that initiated this plan it makes no difference as PSY's manager represents his interest. If  you carefully watch older music videos of PSY, you can easily tell that he is a fan of the Legendary rapper and dancer Hammer, the Choreographed dance techniques in the videos and the secular style he portrays is obviously borrowed from hip hop culture in general and MC Hammer in particular, this goes a long way to show the influence on Hip Hop in the success of the K POP modification, the beats and other sound productions may be attributed to Pop, Techno, Disco, Electro or Rock, but the main ingredients that makes the genre a ''HYPE'' is the influence of Rap music and Hip Hop culture.

In all this, we have to recognize the role that Hip Hop has played in the world of music and the sacrifice the early advents of this culture made to get it here, lets not be quick to forget the resistance faced by men who where blessed with this wonderful art of creating and recreating this distinctive sound and culture that is now a movement to reckon with in the world of music, the early Graffiti guys were arrested for tampering with state properties, the early Hip Hop show promoters were arrested for disturbing the peace, the early rappers were arrested for promoting violence and hate music, but take a  look at the world today and imagine it without Hip Hop, it wouldn't make any sense to me, i don't know about you.