ARKpopPodact - Episode 7 – Black Happiness

 

Our main topics for this week revolve around artists & entertainers and the secrets they keep and is it possible to succeed in Korean Entertainer as a non-Asian?  Our spotlight artist is Yoon Mi Rae, also known as T(asha)

Download link for Episode 7

News:

  • SMTown in Paris’ prices, date and lineup announced.
  • MC Mong’s sentencing.
  • Rain makes it onto the Time 100 Most Influential people list just to spite me and what I said last week.
  • B1A4 releases their mini-album (Let’s Fly) and MV (OK)
  • A Pink releases their mini-album (Seven Springs of A Pink), MV and has their debut performances
  • Nega Network announces Brown Eyed Girls’ tentative comeback for late June.
  • Noelle shoehorns in TVXQ news. They performed Rising Sun on Music Bank’s 600 episode special.
  • Model Kim Yuri’s apparent suicide ruled not a suicide pending a further autopsy.
  • Big Top Singer Seo Taiji and actress Lee Ji Ah were discovered last week to be involved in a divorce lawsuit over alimony payments.

The two filed for divorce in 2006 after being married in the United States in 1997.  This is not only a huge deal because of Seo Taiji’s level of fame and the fact that Lee Ji Ah came out of nowhere to be an actress and has a sort of mysterious background, but it’s also a huge deal because her relationship with Jung Woo Sung was recently brought into the light.  From here the discussion trends toward the secrets in Kpop, because really that’s what we’re all after.

Mid-recording this editorial popped up and seeing as we love discussing Rania and the direct trolling their company has been doing of the typical fan of Kpop we sidetracked a bit.

The second major discussion was spawned by this editorial on Soompi.com and it discusses the fact that the Korean industry is heavily focused on exporting their artists to the surrounding countries and ultimately to the United States but does not seem to be as open to the reverse.

Our spotlight artist is The Queen of Hiphop/Soul in Korea, Yoon Mi Rae, also known as T or Tasha.  Born to an African-American father and a Korean mother, Tasha debuted in Uptown in 1997 and later left to perform as a member of the duo Tashannie in 1999.  

She later went solo in 2001 and has released five exceptional albums.  She is currently married to Drunken Tiger’s Tiger JK (who also pens a lot of her lyrics) and has one son, Jordan.  Our favorite song by her is Black Happiness, and it’s perfect for this sort of situation as it features her singing and rapping and tells a lot of her backstory as a mainstream Korean artist.

One of my favorite songs from Gemini, her only mostly rap album to date.

She’s currently working with Roscoe Umali, Tiger JK, & Styliztik Jones as Sunzoo and is supposed to have her second primarily hiphop album release fairly soon (we hope.)

As of now she is the idol for a lot of up-and-coming female rappers, both underground and in the mainstream.

While we were fumbling to come up with someone that may have the possibility of becoming the “next” T we forgot about the most likely candidate.

Opening Song: B1A4 – OK
Insert Songs:
Yoon Mirae – Black Happiness
Sunzoo – On and On
Closing Song: Park Bom – Don’t Cry

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