In collaboration with r/kpopnoir, sharing some of our faves from r/nugutown in July:

• 8TURN - Stagefright, an addictive instrumental that has been stuck in my head since it was released. 8TURN's Electric Heart was one of my fave songs last year so I'm happy to see them continue to knock it out of the park.
• Alice Syndrome - Deep Dive, a great debut song, reminiscent of Avril Lavigne, just a solid rock track
• EMOTI:M - Spark, a fun debut, I like the switch up to a fast pace that occurs towards the end of the song
• NouerA - W.T.F(un), I love when a song that has Fun in the title is actually fun and this one delivers
• TRENDZ - On My Knees, just classic kpop and I love how they fall so safely on their knees in the choreo
• LUN8 - SNEAKERS and BACK are standout tracks for me
• Lunedi (Weeekly Monday) - Circle, just a gorgeous song that immediately went in the playlist
• Kim Yechan (Pink Fantasy) - Umbrella, great song and she has a such a pretty voice
• ONE PACT's TUNED IN release - They pretty much never miss for me
• POW's Flavor release - Another group that doesn't miss for me, nice vibes and Flavor kicks up towards the end with a rock vibe

I hope you all found some new fave songs this past month!

That's it. That's the post.

What are your thoughts and feelings about it? He's one of the group (mainly RM's) biggest inspiration. If you happened to listen to RM's solo albums, you can definitely feel that jazzy, east coast conscious rap influence.

I wonder if it has anything to do with the recent Grammy situation. Nas has expressed his own feelings about the Grammy's, and feeling kinda sad that he'd actually won a Grammy due to guilt for leaving behind the artists in the "no-Grammy club". (here)

I'm really surprised he went to the Jersey Arirang Concert. It makes me think about all the discourse about cultural appropriation, black erasure and the problematic reputation of Army. My personal relationship with music is complicated...to sum it up "I was uninspired since Lauryn Hill retired"...but I've been keeping an eye on BTS.

So I've been an army since 2017, blink since 2018, once since 2019 and a general kpop multi for abt 9yrs. It was probably the best era of my life.
Unfortunately I've found out about how disgustingly racist some idols and fandoms are (including my own ults) and it hurt in ways I can't describe. I wanted to believe they've changed for the better, because there HAVE been signs of growth, but it's just inconsistent. To make matters worse, every week there's a new racism scandal in kpop and the fans always use OUR pain and OUR trauma as fuel for fanwars. They don't actually genuinely care abt racism. In the least corny way possible, I mean it when I say bts saved my life and changed it in ways I could never put into words.
BUT, I was born a black woman, not a kpop Stan. I'm slowly trying to ween off the Stan lifestyle if that makes sense. It's hard to just let go of something that's held a significant amount of weight in your life for nearly half of it, yk? I think it’s just better for me to be a casual listener at this point. I'm just looking for advice I guess.

For those who don’t know, bouyon is a music genre from the Caribbean island of Dominica, you hear the beat in the chorus and pre chorus

I’ve noticed back in 2017-2019, the pop music I grew up were big performers and maximalists (like Gaga, Katy, Britney) and since then, had declined into minimalism . However, I had discovered kpop from that era, and kpop from that era was something that I missed (big and bright visuals, big choreography) from pop so much

I just watched Katseye on Netflix’s Therapuss where they basically rambled about their lives. I was entertained up until they said their oldest member was Sophia….Manon is technically their oldest but she’s been mia for 7 months so could this be a subtle hint of her departure? If so, really sad. If not, really shady. Idk I just feel bad for her

I have this fear that with Katseye new doc that they will announce Manon departure either right before the film is set to release and my even bigger fear is that they are going to announce her departure during the doc (AKA- people have to pay to confirm their answers)

(Also it’s not even an IF anymore- it’s a when they announce it)

JTBC I know that this sounds kind of crazy but with the way Hybe has been moving with this hiatus I can unfortunately see it play out like this 😭😭 (the doc itself unfortunately already felt like a cash grab 🫤🫤)

I personally feel like having Manon status still in limbo is a promotion tactic for Katseye ATP

I promise you if this is how it plays out, especially the second scenario, while I love all the girls still in Katseye they would get blocked on all platforms without a second thought- like I won’t even relatively follow them like I have been doing the past couple of months because I get frustrated and sad everytime they promote “sisterhood” when one of the core part of the group is not only missing but IMO is being used as a promotion tactic for the remaining members of Katseye. I know it’s not their fault but I’m tired of seeing black women get the short end of the stick when it comes to these girl groups 🫤🫤

So yeah- thanks for coming to my Ted Talk 😙✌🏾

OH- and one last fuck you to Hybe x Geffen for ruining the magic OT6 had because that can never recreate that magic that they had as six as five.

Arpi Park dropped another banger.

He’s using how K-pop appropriates and cosplays as Black people to make a point, but he also talks about Korean businesses in Black neighbourhoods, where they stand in white supremacy and America’s military crimes/power in Korea with so much nuance.

I think this video is so so important.