The Official KPOPALYPSE Blackjack Park Bom Defense Rap Challenge

KPOPALYPSE 05/16/2015 Editorials, K-Entertainment, Opinions Leave A Comment

Which Blackjack can pick up the microphone and defend Park Bom the most effectively in a rap verse? Read on for the Blackjack Defence Rap Challenge!

Some quick background for those not in the loop about this: about nine months ago, Kemy from nugu group A.KOR dropped a diss rap about 2NE1‘s Park Bom.

Are the allegations in the lyrics true or false? I don’t care. I disagree with Kemy’s anti-drugs stance and I actually think all drugs should be legal, but I also think Kemy pissing off crazy Blackjacks (2NE1’s kooky fandom, notorious for hard-boiled insanity) is hilarious and has provided me with much entertainment. So as far as I’m concerned, those two factors cancel each other out and therefore I have no horse in this particular race.

However, Kemy’s rap wasn’t strictly an anti-drugs rant or even an anti-Bom rant, and to characterize it as only these things is to oversimplify it drastically. The criticisms that she made were more directed at YG Entertainment’s alleged power to cover up scandals and bend the Korean legal system. More importantly, since the rap was not an official A.KOR release, but for a rap competition, Kemy wrote the rap herself. That’s neither here nor there quality wise, but it does mean that this places her in a very small pool of female idol rappers who do actually self-compose and that we can actually fairly assess the rap ability of. To this end, she demonstrated superior wordplay skills and black humour than the likes of other self-composing idol rappers (including 2NE1’s CL and EXID’s LE) have always promised but never delivered, and I know this because everyone I know who speaks fluent Korean was impressed by the technical aspect of her rap (whether they agreed with the actual message or not). Musically or ethically you may not like Kemy’s rap, but as far as rap skills go, it’s pretty impressive stuff for someone who would normally still be in high school. I know the lyrics I wrote on desks during classes when I was a bored schoolkid weren’t anywhere near this proficient.

People may be wondering why I’m posting about this now instead of when the issue was hot. The reason is that Blackjacks tend to hold a grudge for a while, as the like/dislike ratio on A.KOR’s most recent music video shows, so I wanted to give ample time for all the hate-raps to gradually come in. By now, in May 2015, it’s probably safe to say that any Blackjacks who had something to say about this issue in a rap verse have already done so, and I wondered if any Blackjacks could come up with a quality rap track and match the level of microphone skill demonstrated by Kemy.

Time to find out!

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82itsmytime – Don’t Touch Bom!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YejNnu48_us

This track starts off with some battlefield sounds because that’s what artists do when they’re being all hardcore and stuff. Then the rap comes in with “hey, I’ve got nothing much to say”, and rarely was a truer word spoken in a K-pop diss battle. Starting an intro with an admission of “I don’t know what to say” is fine if you’re just being modest so people underestimate you and then you proceed to tear the microphone a new asshole, but this guy actually runs out of ideas so fast that he quotes Inner Circle’s “Bad Boys” at about the 40-second mark so maybe he shouldn’t have drawn attention to his lack of lyrical inspiration any more than necessary.

Other rap crimes here include impersonating Nicki Minaj’s weird Saturday morning cartoon bullshit novelty voice when he says “you feel so tiny”, plus rhyming “bus” with “ass”, a particularly awkward rhyme but I guess he was that desperate to make a joke about an underage girl being hit by a bus that he was willing to sacrifice the rhyme flow for it … which shows you what kind of people some Blackjacks can be, I guess.

Then again, there’s not much flow here to sacrifice anyway, the style is fairly strict rhyming couplets throughout and they’re massively awkward, cringeworthy couplets at that (“your shit is a bore and you act like a whore”?). At least the backing track isn’t too bad, so I’ll give this one 2/10 for at least not using a yoloturd trap beat.

Jesungiya – Kemy Bitch

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnrBKdhuGX0

As soon as you hit play on this one, you’ll get plastered with a couple intimidatingly earnest text walls about how this guy has really moved on from the whole situation and that he feels bad about calling Kemy a bitch because he “understand(s) how important it is to pay attention to a word that is gender or racially charged”. This is of course completely weaksauce bollock, as apologising for using a specific word while simultaneously “not apologising for (the) sentiments” that the word represents means that even if you didn’t use the word “bitch” you still meant the word “bitch”.

In any case, guess I gotta review this, and there’s not a lot to say about it. His wordplay is a bit better than 82itsmytime (still mostly basic couplet raps but at least not as awkward and cringeworthy), but his backing track is worse. Pay attention class, diss tracks need a hard beat to reflect the anger of the rap, not some twinkly pussy slow ballad feelgood nonsense, and it all just sounds too mellow. He’s using an “I’m on top of the world, floating above the clouds, I’m the king” feel instead of a “I’m gonna fuck your face up” type sound and that’s just a rap diss track faux pas. 2/10.

TMinsTV – 0-100 Freestyle (A.KOR Kemy Diss)

Even though we’re still in boring rhyming couplet land straight from 1988, this guy’s probably got the most lyrical skill out of anyone so far (not saying much but still). This track starts off promisingly with a decent atmospheric beat … then the rapper starts self-censoring his swear words. Come on, what the fuck is this bullshit? It’s not a very enjoyable diss rap if you edit the rude parts out. There’s no need for it, it’s just a YouTube demo for some batshit crazy Blackjacks, it’s not a fucking commercial radio drivetime slot, so you don’t need to self-regulate like Tipper Gore is looking over your shoulder.

Things get even more wimpy as the tone changes abruptly at the halfway point from “me and my badass Blackjack crew want to cut your head off” to “you’re just a girl, I can’t wait to see you shine, one day you will baby”. It’s like he’s playing both the “good cop” and the “bad cop” in one song to try and manipulate Kemy’s emotions, and there’s something really creepy about it all in a Chris Hansen-esque kind of way. Imagine how laughable Lil Kim’s diss rap against Nicki Minaj would sound if halfway through the beat changed to something soft and smooth and Kimmy started rapping “I hope you can shine one day, girl”. Just nope. Stick to one message please.

In the video comments, the creator says “at the end of the day I am all about progression, so I’m open to criticism”, and maybe if he could try to sound more like a rapper and less like a creepy preacher who says “god sends sinners to burn in hell for eternity” and then “but he loves us!” in the very next breath, that’d be a good start. 2/10 for at least having a decent beat for the first half of it.

Ria.K – Reply To Kemy’s Diss To Park Bom (Teaser)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6spr2KBOW8

Oh wow, this girl sounds like she can actually rap, plus she knows how to insert rhyming words in places other than at the end of the bar – rejoice! Pity she’s less good at working out how to stay connected to the Internet. She promised the full version of this rap “tonight or tomorrow” about nine months ago and her channel hasn’t been updated since. It’s possible of course that she may have slept on it and then in the light of the new day thought better about doing a full diss rap reply, which is a shame as I think we may have been robbed of something semi-decent here.

Mind you, even in this teaser format it’s about the same length as some of the other offerings here anyway. 2/10 for low determination levels.

Crystal W. – Quit It

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMKkkeWsvfs

The Fischer-Price drum machine at the start sounded cute, and I thought that was a good gimmick to intro a rap track so I waited for it to end and the real beat to kick in … and then eventually I realised that wasn’t going to happen and this girl really thought that busting her entire rap verse over Baby’s First Drumkit was a good idea. Speaking of which, much mirth was had with the line “you messed with Bom, that’s like effin’ with a kid”. Can you cunting fucking rap bitches actually realise that fucking swearing is a very fucking natural fucking part of fucking rap music and it’s better to fucking leave the cunt fuck shit rap fucking swears in the fucking songs … bitch?

Also, Bom is like 68 years old or some shit, so comparing dissing her to fucking with a kid is kind of ass-backwards as fucking fuck. If anything, dissing Kemy is the “fucking with a kid” part, quite literally if we take the meaning of “fucking” to be “fucking with the mind/career of”.

This song gets 2/10 for at least giving it a go with the cheapest recording materials ever, which is at least kinda cool in a Crayon Punk kind of way.

Jennita Karurak – A Song For You Kemy A.KOR By Black Jack

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtN_zzxiaaY

Another cheap-ass production but a little bit better musically than the last one. This girl may or may not have good rap flow, I have no idea because she’s rapping in Thai. However, what I do know is that at about 1:03 she breaks into something that sounds disturbingly similar to bhangra.

I can’t assess this girl’s rap, but I’ll give her 2/10 because at least the entire song isn’t bhangra, thank you girl for sparing us a total bhangra track and at least dropping an actual rap verse at the start of it.

KeNNy AKM – A.KOR Kemy Diss Park Bom Rap

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfyCYwbKOAk

Got to love these innovative song titles, hey? This is another rhyming-couplets-over-a-ghetto-blaster-in-the-corner-of-the-room-sounds-good-enough-fuck-it job, but hold up for a moment because this guy is flat-out creepy as fuck. He can’t stop obsessing through the entire video about how young Kemy is, wildly underestimates her age (she’s not twelve but I bet he wishes she was), and even raps about how he got an erection over her in a rhyming couplet that would make Pedobear proud. Of course, all this acute awareness of Kemy’s youth doesn’t prevent him from gleefully sticking the boot into her anyway, because it’s more important to defend Bom apparently, but in this case I think defending Bom is maybe just an excuse for his real agenda.

2/10 for providing a community service to concerned parents who want to know what warning signs to look out for when meeting their daughter’s strange older friends. Might I suggest that one red flag is if they own a studio with walls plastered in comic book art?

sukiluvzyuu – Congrats On Being Infamous (Just Another Kemy From A.KOR Diss Rap)

The tacit acknowledgement in the song title that nobody gives a fuck is probably the best thing about this “for YGE yeah we ride” diss rap lolocaust, but there’s two important differences to everything else here. Firstly, the rapping isn’t rhyming couplets for a change, our female rapper is actually going to some sort of effort to mix things up a little and maybe she even took more than two minutes to piece this one together, wow! Bravo for attempting to demonstrate some more modern rap style! Unfortunately, this is completely negated by the beat also being more “modern” but in a bad way, it’s easily the worst one of the entire bunch here, kind of almost a yolotrap thing. What a shame.

2/10 for you.

TheEvaristoCaitlin – Diss Kemy Rap Acapella: Blackjack Love

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1EYCFGA8q4Q

You see, this is the problem with fandom group-think, and I’m not just talking about Blackjacks here, but any fandom anywhere. Identifying with the fandom gives you a warm fuzzy feeling, like you’re a part of something bigger than yourself. However, then something strange starts happening: there’s unspoken pressure now. Suddenly, because you’re a “Blackjack”, you feel obliged to like everything that 2NE1 do regardless of how it makes you feel, plus you start to feel obliged to engage in “endorsed fan activities” even if they might make you feel a bit strange or might not really be what you want. So when the whole fandom gets swept up in a “let’s burn some high school girl at the stake” thing, you find yourself dragged into it emotionally, so up your awkward, hesitant attempt at a diss rap goes on the Internet, for not much gain except a vague feeling of “wow I’m representing Blackjacks now kinda” and KPOPALYPSE taking the piss out of you in a cruel, snarky blog post some months later.

Was it worth it? 2/10 because I feel sorry for this person who will no doubt grow out of being a faux-Blackjack one day and turn into a mature woman and look back at this moment and cringe.