99 is the seventh
album by the Korean hip hop group Epik High. The album, according to the
artists, was named 99 due to many
reasons - their liking-ness for the number “9”, the number of songs in the
album (there are ten songs, but one is of them is a short track), and because
they wanted to reach out through music to the 99% that are in the bottom of a
theoretical socio-economical pyramid. The first title track, “Up”, is an
upbeat song featured by Park Bom from the group 2EN1; this mix of rock and old
school hip hop helps the listener to feel encouraged by the repetition of the
phrase “Up, up ,baby get up , we’re going up” (even if you do not understand Korean).
The rest of the song gives a shout of hope for the people that have suffered (everyone)
because there is always a tomorrow and it will be better. The second tittle track , “Don’t Hate Me”, is furthermore a very heart lifting song. The most repeated
lyrics say, “Everybody hates me, but you love me and I love you, oh oh oh I
only need you to clap. Everyone is an anti-fan, but do you know why I smile?,
oh oh oh, I only need you on my side. ” Embracing the fact that
life is worth living, because even though it might feel like everyone hates
you, there is always someone loving you. As well as cheering songs, the album contains tracks
that criticize through stronger and more powerful beats “the haters”. “Get Out The Way”
and “The
Bad Guy” portray that people can be very
destructive towards others, not only through physical violence, but could cause
someone to get more hurt by the power of words. In addition to those tracks, the
album contains romantic songs (closer to suffering-after-break-up songs) like “A Word that Shouldn’t be Said When in Love”, “It’s
Cold”, “You Don't
Deserve Her” and “Kill This Love”.
Overall, 99, offers a critique of how
the world is becoming a bunch of greedy-monsters who get happiness by feeling
superior than others , while it should not be that way; and a message of redemption
for the victims of that hate. PS: We all know that we are both the haters and
the victims.
The song “Kill This Love” has very strong wording like “God help me kill, kill, kill,
kill, kill, this love” and “Redrum , redrum, redrum” which is murder backwards,
to portray the deep suffering from a breakup, do you think that impacting
phrases like this should be refrained? What do you think that people that are
being hated and are losing the strength-to-keep-holding-on should do?
Thanks for sharing about Epik High, Sin Hee. I checked out their music video for "Don't Hate Me," because I was unfamiliar with their music and there were some interesting themes there that really resonated with the topics of our class. In the video, the world created by consumerism is portrayed as lifeless and boring, a world of silly adults, while the world of youth culture is the real world, the fun world. Both in their music and in society at large, they seem to be encouraging their listeners to break free of the things that imprison them.
ReplyDeleteI found this quote from Tablo about attempts to censor them: ""Most songs aren’t censored because of language. There are no cuss words or bad words. But if we talk about a social issue, we get censored. I don’t understand how discussing a social issue or saying that something wrong should be made right is bad for the youth… If talking about serious issues and reality and how to make it better is wrong; If we're living in that kind of society, things are not going to get any better." (http://www.freemuse.org/sw17737.asp) They're not just encouraging individuals to feel good about themselves, but encouraging their listeners to work together to change society at large!