INTERVIEW | KOREAN HIP HOP ARTIST ART LOVER (@artlovermusic)

korean

With K‑Pop being such a dom­in­ant genre in Korea, how easy is it for female rap­pers to estab­lish them­selves?

The short answer is no, I don’t believe that K‑Pop is pre­vent­ing female rap­pers from get­ting atten­tion. The K‑Pop phe­nomen­on helps every­one who is singing or rap­ping in Korean lan­guage.

Do you have any female role mod­els that are cur­rently in the industry?

I really like Mi-rae Yoon.

Do you feel female Korean rap­pers are over­looked when com­pared to male Korean rap­pers?

They do get atten­tion, but per­haps they may have some trouble get­ting cred­ib­il­ity in the under­ground because Hip-hop his­tor­ic­ally has been a male dom­in­ated genre. Am I over­looked com­pared to my male coun­ter­parts? Yes, in cer­tain ways I am.

What is the cur­rent scene like in Korea? What attracts you to this scene?

The scene is boom­ing and it attracts me because its fusion at it’s finest. It’s fas­cin­at­ing to see how Korean’s take a cul­tur­al phe­nom­ena such as Hip-Hop which is at it’s core as far from Asi­an cul­ture as can be, and turn it into their own thing.

Are there oth­er genres / music scenes that you would like to explore? If so, why that spe­cif­ic genre / music scene? 

I would say that my music is a fusion between, Hip-Hop, RnB, Rock and Jazz so I feel that I’m already explor­ing oth­er genres. And I feel that these dif­fer­ent influ­ences all have their place in my debut single “Want U Back”.

Do you feel that Hip Hop can break lan­guage bar­ri­ers?

I guess it can at times but gen­er­ally Hip-Hop is very lyr­ic driv­en and if you don’t under­stand the lan­guage you may not be com­pelled to listen. In my opin­ion melody breaks lan­guage bar­ri­ers more than rap and that is why I love melod­ic Hip-Hop and try to include as much melod­ies as I can in my music.

How import­ant are lyr­ics to you? Do you focus on any spe­cif­ic themes with­in your music?

Lyr­ics are very import­ant for me, I wrote “Want U Back” with Swedish pro­du­cer Max Bil­lion who penned Mike Perry’s song “Rock­steady” and DIMA’s single “Boots”. Max doesn’t have a clue about Korean lan­guage but he can hear if it sounds good any­way. I love nos­tal­gic themes, such as my debut single, which is about long­ing for lost love.

Who would be your dream Hip Hop col­lab­or­a­tion?

G‑Dragon.

Find out more about Art Lov­er here:

Offi­cial Web­site http://www.artlover-music.com/

Face­book https://www.facebook.com/mynameisartlover/

Instra­gram https://www.instagram.com/artlovermusic/

Twit­ter https://twitter.com/artlover­music

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Rohun Batra

Rohun Batra

Rohun AKA Poet­ini­at­ive is a UK-based writer. With a huge interest in Korean Hip Hop and RnB, he looks to devel­op fur­ther into this music scene, and hope­fully work as an artist with­in the scene one day.

About Rohun Batra

Rohun Batra
Rohun AKA Poetiniative is a UK-based writer. With a huge interest in Korean Hip Hop and RnB, he looks to develop further into this music scene, and hopefully work as an artist within the scene one day.