Zico (rapper) Puns

https://channel-korea.com/zicos-leaving-block-b/

https://channel-korea.com/korean-rapper-vasco-profile/

The artists I mentioned above r who I consider the best 3rd gen kpop had to offer rap wise. I also feel like it is the epitome kpop industry can delve into the hip hop scene. These guys solo works r just pure raw nd unaltered hip hop nd the feel that gives is just hands down brilliant verse structures, varying flows, the lyrical play nd etc.

U guys need to check out their solo releases - RM has two mixtapes,Suga has two mixtapes, J Hope 1, Bobby has 2 mixtapes nd I think those both r full albums, Mino also has 2 mixtapes. For Zico I can't even name how many songs he produced. Just go to their Spotify pages nd click shuffle.

Apart from music perspective, I feel like these guys r sooo respected even in the k hip hop scene that I feel like it is impossible to recreate that level of success nd impact. Also all these guys know each other since the beginning although they don't mention each other.

Even before debut Bobby nd BI were making waves in Korea, Zico seems to have ascended a nee level of popularity that everything he touches becomes hit, I don't even need to say about Bts, they have ascended to another level even collaborating with some OG hip hop artists both international nd korean. Mino also is another respected rapper in the scene nd he has worked with soo many hip hop artists.

Right now in the current gen, I'm only gonna talk about stray kids cox they only seem to be putting effort in rap areas nd they seem to give their attention to the genre nd wanting to prove themselves. One of them even went to show me the money although he did disqualify.

While out of 4th gen , they seem to be the ones to ace it, if I have to compare their work to their seniors only in group not solo coz they haven't released solo works. I feel like they fall short by a large extent. The flow, the lyrical play, the versatility I find them to be average. Is it only me who feels that? Let me know guys.

They do seem to tackle some good topics on their work nd they seem to be as authentic as possible but like I said they seem to be ok. Nothing extraordinary but average. Like I don't get tracks like Fear by Mino, Yggr by Bobby, hit me by Mobb, hip hop lover nd cypher series by Bts rap line nd their earlier albums works.

Nd keep in mind I am only including the early 3 years works of the above guys, not their whole career works coz stray kids also had 3 years since debut.

I feel like vocalists wise maybe the 4th gen can match up the previous gen but rap wise it's not

I honestly would like to know how good they are, not for comparison but to learn from. What do you think are the key takeaways from each of them from BTS - RM, Jhope and Suga- and others like Zico and Mino and what do you think do they have to improve on?

I enjoy listening to them and love them as both artists and people so I'd like to know if what your opinions are.

Also, could anyone who knows Korean actually give better insight about their lyricism? I do understand a lot of Korean, but not enough to form am informed opinion.

It would be great to get more info on them other than just fans hyping them up (which I don't mind at all btw but doesn't really give you much insight).

Also, general thought: I wish we talked more about what we could possibly learn from idols in this sub.

P.S. I'm not asking anyone to necessarily say if a rapper is good or bad, but just to point out things from a technical point of view that are usually missed or overlooked.

I just made a post in unpopularopinions sub nd I found out that many people r not aware of this. I am honestly surprised coz this dingo killing verse thing is such an awesome thing for rappers to show off their talents nd their songs that they produced.

Zico Killing verse: video

Mino Killing verse: video

Honestly these performances r so high quality nd the stage presence of these 2 rappers is top notch. Their flow, the diction with which they spit those verses nd the mixing of various songs is the highlight of these performances. U guys need to check this out. Don't miss. Ur in for a ride.

In No order, here’s some of my favourites:

Bobby of iKON: U Mad, Holup, Bling Bling, Rhythm Ta

Mino of Winner: Run away, Fear, Love and a boy, Rocket

Zico of Block B: Bermuda Triangle, Anti, Eureka, Shall We Dance

Mark of NCT: Cherry Bomb, The 7th Sense, Misfit, Mad City

Taeyong of NCT: Chain, Mad City, Kick It, GTA

RM, Suga, Jhope: Ddaeng, UGH!, All the Cyphers

Changbin and Jisung of Stray Kids: Gods Menu, Easy, We Go, Hellevator

Joohoney and I.M of Monsta X: Shoot Out, Dramarama, Trespass, Love Killa

Mingi and Hongjoong of Ateez: Hala Hala, Wonderland, Thanxx and Treasure

Hanse of Victon: What I Said, Flip A Coin, Howling

Wow and Byeongkwan of A.C.E: Undercover, Savage and Favorite Boys

Jennie of BLACKPINK: D4 and Solo

Lisa of BLACKPINK: Kick It and Love To Hate Me

Soyeon of ( G ) I-DLE: Lion and $$$

Dami of Dreamcatcher: Scream

KHipop: H1gher Gang: The Purge, Team and The Arrival

Jessi: Who Dat B and Gucci

CL: Hwa and Hello B******

I prefer more agressive rapping but softer rapping is nice too. I’ll probably add on to this list later.

That’s it. I keep seeing people actually pouring out their unpopular thoughts so I figured I might as well. I wanna know if my ears are accurate or my music taste is just… different. It seems like everyone love bopping to the song and genuinely love listening to it, whereas I can’t even finish listening to the song without feeling annoyed(?) cause i feel like the song is bland and monotone. It doesn’t help too that the song gained so much popularity and being used literally EVERYWHERE. So yeah, is it just me?

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Let's face it, most idol rappers are not good rappers at all despite the hype they receive from fans. If the majority of idol rappers were to go on a show like Unpretty Rap Star or Show Me The Money where they had to freestyle raps on the drop of a dime or write a rap for a performance. They would get destroyed and laughed off the show. But, there are a few idol rappers I could see as real rappers who have either written or composed their own raps, or show potential.

Great female idol rappers: Dami, LE, Mimi, Soyeon, Jessi, Moonbyul, Yeeun, CL, and Cheetah.

Passable Idol rappers/Idol rappers with potential: Giselle and Jennie.

Great Male Idol Rappers: Zico, RM, Suga, J-hope, G-Dragon, Bobby, and Mino.

Passable male idol rappers/idol rappers with potential: Mark and Taeyong

Edit: Added Mino to the list

Edit 2: Added Mark and Taeyong to the "potential list"

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I was on youtube watching different lyric videos, when I ran into this odd gem. A Zico and RM song called Fuck Cockroachez from 2008, so RM would've been 13-14 when it was recorded and Zico 15-16. I knew that both of them had said that they knew each other since their were really young, but it's weird to actually hear such an early collab between them. Their voices sound so young, and they've obviously grown so much since then. It makes me wonder how they even met in the first place, and whether they even kept up with each other in their early career developments.

It's also interesting to note how much their careers went on both similar and different trajectories from each other. Both started following their dreams of being a rapper at young ages. Zico would go on to travel quite a bit as a teen, continuing his underground rapping and auditioning to different companies (including SM notably). Eventually he would make a duo with Block B member, Park Kyung in which they were then noticed and casted by Stardom Ent. He also had a mixtape released in 2010 which had critical success in khiphop which would really help his reputation as a "real" rapper compared to many other rappers in the kpop scene. Eventually Block B was built from Stardom and Zico debuted as the leader with the song freeze in 2011.

RM's underground career was bit more rocky. He would join a multitude of different crews over the years and worked with rappers like Changmo, UglyDuck and etc. He also went through a lot of name changes over these years going from Runch Randa to Randa and then eventually Rap Monster. Eventually in a audition to another crew, RM was noticed by the rapper Sleepy. Sleepy would then give BigHit's Bang pd, RM's mixtape which would result in his entry to BigHit as the first member of BTS. Over these years he did produce a large body of work, most of which is long gone as he apparently deleted their traces from the internet upon debut (or so I've heard from diff Korean forums). Eventually BTS would go through some stark member changes losing ppl like Kidoh, Iron and more in favor of Jin, Jungkook, Taehyung, Suga, and Jhope. Suga, RM, and Jhope were the only members who survived from the initial lineup. BTS went onto debut with No More Dream in 2013.

Both have since debut reached success, RM with of course BTS, and his mixtapes. While Zico has had a more successful solo career, and a less successful career with Block B.

There is a WAVE of kpop fans coming in because of the rise in BTS, and members being involved in the culture; this has lead to a huge spike in some stupid shit spewed on this sub. So let's go over why Suga, is. so. average. (And RM, imo). I want to preface by saying i don't hate BTS, nor do i think they are awful (I think they are actually very unique in a very saturated market).

First, we have only two mixtapes of Suga. So not too much sample size, but it will do.

Agust D (By Agust D) was released in 2016, and was pure trash of a mixtape. The productions were decent, but his rapping was so forced and off, it ruined tons of the proponent of the mixtape. As Rhythmer claims:

> The production of the mixtape wasn't bad, but his rap tone was far too unnatural and his lyrics mixed with a desire for recognition, a sense of inferiority, and self-examination were not as inspiring as intended. Hence why it was panned by both critics and the audience.

Case proven: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Y_Eiyg4bfk

This was, I think, the title song of the mixtape, and you immediately notice him growling his tone to make this super unnatural sound, which in turn hurts his final delivery in his verses; couple this with the fact that his flow is literally ALL over the place. It's just not a good performance, at all.

This mixtape was garbage, and mostly utilize the similar tone and cadence from this song. I don't recommend anyone listening to it. There's this notion that fast raps are considering "going off" in the idol market, and his album is the epitome of that.

D-2 was his most recent release, and it was much better. His tone has smoothed out and his flow stabilized. This is emphasized in 대취타. However, despite the growth, and the insane production, his rapping performance is so so average and his hook is pretty unimpressive. Their lies the issue. He raps like a commercial korean idol rapper. Songs like 점점 어른이 되나봐,사람, and 이상하지 않은가 are filled with extremely generic korean-idol cadences/flows/lyrics and the productions are not able to offset his average rapping skills like 대취타.

And THAT'S the issue. Unless the production is absolutely stellar, Suga puts out extremely generic songs. And it's generic because his PERFORMANCES are generic.

This is not even "idol hating" bullshit that loser khiphop fans like to spew. But even among IDOLS, Suga sounds very generic. Zico is the definition of an idol with an incredible rap basics. And despite GD clearly not being

To anyone who’s not a wrestling fan, I’ll try to explain it as good as possible.

Now in my opinion, most K-Pop rappers are not good rappers. There are some exceptions such as JOOHEON, I.M., Zico, RM, SUGA, etc... but a lot of others are assigned to rap by the labels. They train them to be in the position and often have the stigma amongst hip-hop fans that they cannot actually rap because they are “idols.” It’s no secret that a lot of K-Pop stars are also scouted for their visuals, and trained to sing, dance, rap etc... although there are many exceptions to this. They are also seen by many as too gimmicky to be taken seriously by hip-hop audiences. Although there are underground rappers who become K-Pop stars who are acclaimed by others.

Now onto WWE wrestlers. In professional wrestling, there is something called independent wrestling. This is completely separate from WWE as a whole and is a smaller stage compared to WWE. A lot of people here come from training they have received at local wrestling schools to show off their skills and hope they get scouted by big companies. These people are also famous amongst the Internet Wrestling Community and have a huge following once they get on a bigger stage. They are super athletic, and can do more complicated moves than what is usually shown on TV (except now it is a bit different.) A lot of people signed to WWE were indie wrestlers, but a chunk of them were not wrestlers beforehand with no prior experience before joining WWE. They show them the ropes and help them to hone their craft. The things is a lot of fans are super cynical, and a lot of people who did not wrestle independently prior to WWE are often seen as “corporately created” and are rejected by fans. They’re alright in the ring, but they don’t meet the expectations of the fans. But they are given characters and promos (dialogue to boost character) to get over with the audience and it works. Take that away though and they are not the best workers. Take someone like John Cena for example. He’s a good worker for sure, and his original battle rapper gimmick was entertaining, but Superman style booking and his becoming the face of WWE’s more child friendly PG Era rubbed a lot of fans the wrong way and people turned on him. Chanting “You can’t wrestle!” and curses directed at Cena. Some WWE trained wrestlers are great like Randy Orton, Big E, etc... but a lot of people don’t reach the standard of the more critical fans. Even if they have great matches, th

I really like the sounds of Zico’s brother, Woo Taewoon, Kim Seung Min from Beautiful Noise, wish CJamm made more bangers, wish the same for female rappers Giant Pink, Yuk Jidam, Yezi, & Nada.

It hurts cus I expect too much more music from them & feel that they could’ve gain huge fame from them. I’m out here lowkey rooting for them on the side hoping they can make it but I guess life got the best of them or life just ain’t fair. Also the fact that they might currently be under strict labels that don’t allow them to really express their real sides? Or maybe some of them gave up rapping, idk.

(Please don’t diss each other’s faves, everyone’s rap style preferences are different from each other. I’m just out hea tryina observe & explore more talented underrated artists that y’all can expose me to, that’s all. Thanks in advanced for sharing!)

EDIT: Wow... A lot of actually interesting hidden gems you guys recommended. I’m gonna keep lurking & stop replying & stop looking up their songs cus I am a YouTube reactor here & there. Cus I feel the need to react to all these artists you guys are recommending; to post on my channel! Thank you so much again!!!

I swear it was one of the most popular Kpop songs at the beginning of 2020 especially with the tik tok challenge so I thought it would have a lot more views. Nunu nana by jessi also was so popular and has 115 million views.

which rappers are from Harlem the one I know is Edot baby

I mean i know what an underground rapper is but I have seen kpop stans [and khh fans] say that to be an underground rapper you ALSO NEED to make a mixtape.

so is it, like an idol was an underground rapper bcoz:

1.he was a rapper already before becoming an idol [just doing rapping nd writing raps]

or

2. he was a rapper b4 becoming an idol AND ALSO released/made mixtapes.

I’ve seen him on countless variety shows most recently (as in what I’ve watched not the actual episode when it aired) Knowing Brothers & Running Man. I’m not sure if it’s his team or him but I’m so sick of seeing him steal black creators dances or taking tiktok dances and making them apart of his choreography. It’s cringe-y. It’s unoriginal and I know he can dance better than that.

Obviously dance moves can and ARE reused. That’s normal. Zico takes these dances and brands them as if HE created them. He can be cringe-y and use the dance moves just stop pretending like you invented them. Again it might be his team and agency that has the ideas to do this but he’s old and wise enough to know when to cite your sources.

(Summer Hate has a notable tiktok dance. And on Knowing Brothers he teaches them a different dance but I can’t remember the exact episode)

I remember having watched a second music video for Any Song that came out a little while after the original birthday party themed video, but now i can't find it or even any mention of it. The video was mostly just Zico dancing as he seems to walk around through different rooms/ hallways. At the end he's joined by other dancers too. Someone tell me I'm not crazy, this existed right?

I recently got into Ateez and noted that Mingi always says "FIX ON" before he raps, and it reminded me of Oneus' Ravn and his "Ra spit a flame". This got me thinking what other rappers in kpop introduce themselves before their lines, and also what they say (because it took me a long time to understand what both Ravn and Mingi said lol)

I watched AOMG's 4things (interesting to see AOMG listed "rap monster" and "supreme boi" as hip hop people even a few years after debuting with BTS) and RM's 4things yesterday and had a few thoughts.

1. Both Zico of Block B and RM were involved in the underground rap community and RM had built a name for himself there, so why were the receptions so different? Zico is very much embraced by the khip-hop community now, and while there may have been some prejudice when he debuted as an idol, it didn't seem nearly as bad as what RM experienced.

I don't follow Block B, but their debut song "Freeze" was much more kpop than BTS' debut song. And Block B's MV aesthetics were similar to Big Bang.

2. Once he knew Big Hit was making BTS into a kpop group, why did he stay? Could he not have waited to get signed with a different label? I vaguely recall he mentioned thinking about giving up and going back to studying until he was called to audition(?) for BH. Did that mean that there weren't any other hip hop label willing to sign him at that time?

It can't just be because BH allowed him to write his own music and story because there's way more freedom in hip-hop than being with BH or idol life. Is it just that he had already invested his time as a trainee and didn't want to accept "quitting"?

3. I wonder who RM would become had he not gone the idol route and became purely a rapper?

What would have happened had he waited until SMTM started? Or let's assumed he never joined BTS and signed with a label like AOMG?

It's interesting how even back then, on the 4things show, he said he likes to just walk around and listen to music, Namjooning. Some things never change.

I see a lot of (Western) criticism about K-pop/Korean rappers in terms of either their writing or rapping skills. I don’t actually mind the rap parts of K-pop songs (I don’t listen much to pure Korean rap songs except for those who are part of idol groups like Mino, Bobby, etc) as long as it blends well with the song.

I don’t actually have the right ear or gauge if that rap verse or how it was rapped is good or not and I can see all over K-pop Reddit about how bad some of it are.

So let’s flip it and I would love to know who, in Western standards, are the best Korean/K-pop rappers in either writing or rapping in general? I would suppose that those born in America have the advantage as they are exposed to the culture but I would also love to know the native ones who learned the genre well.

Edit: Instead of best, considered as good rappers, since this is more like a question from someone who is not well-versed with rap in general than a ranking.

Atacante já o maior artilheiro rubro-negro no século 21 e tem recordes a alcançar, a curto e longo prazo. Os dois gols na vitória por 3 a 2 sobre a LDU nesta terça-feira, pela Libertadores, fizeram com que Gabigol igualasse Zico no topo da lista de maiores artilheiros da competição continental no Flamengo. Com 16 tentos, o atacante tem tudo para superar o Galinho na estatística ainda nesta temporada e pode bater outros recordes com a camisa rubro-negra.

Gabriel já é o maior artilheiro do século 21 com a camisa do Flamengo, com 79 gols em 111 jogos, e vem galgando posições entre os maiores goleadores na história do rubro-negro.

Atualmente, é o 33º, a poucos passos de alcançar o top 30. Os 20 maiores também não parecem inalcançáveis para o jogador de 24 anos, dada a alta média de gols por temporada com a camisa do Flamengo: foram 43 em 2019 e 27 em 2020.

Confira as oito marcas que podem ser batidas pelo ídolo rubro-negro, tanto no clube, quanto em competições:

• Estar entre os dez maiores artilheiros da Libertadores

Com 16 gols, o atacante precisa de mais onze para alcançar Lucas Pratto e Oswaldo Ramírez no top 10, com 27 gols cada.

• Estar entre os dez maiores artilheiros no Brasileiro de pontos corridos

Falta apenas um gol para que Gabigol iguale o atacante Washington (82), primeiro a integrar a lista dos dez maiores. O atacante tem 81 gols marcados na competição desde 2012.

• Estar entre os dez maiores artilheiros brasileiros da Libertadores

Com os dois gols sobre a LDU, Gabigol chegou ao 11º lugar na lista de artilheiros brasileiros da competição continental, com 17 gols marcados. Está a um de igualar Marcelinho Carioca e Tita, chegando ao top 10. O líder da lista é Luizão, com 29 gols.

• Estar entre 30 maiores artilheiros do Flamengo

Uma das marcas mais palpáveis para o Gabigol. Com 79 gols marcados, faltam apenas cinco para igualar Rubens, 30º da lista.

• Estar entre os 20 maiores artilheiros do Flamengo

Para alcançar o posto, o atacante precisará chegar aos 98 gols de Gaúcho, 20º. Se mantiver o ritmo das últimas duas temporadas, tem tudo para conseguir.

• Ser artilheiro do Flamengo em três edições consecutivas do Brasileiro

Nem Zico (7 vezes), Bebeto (4) e Romário (3), que aparecem mais vezes na lista de artilheiros do Fla por edição do Brasileiro, atingiram essa marca. Goleador rubro-negro em 2020 (14 gols) e em 2019 (25 gols) — quando foi artilheiro do campeonato —, Gabriel precisará fazer um bom campeonat

Story time! Early 2020, I downloaded tiktok and enjoyed the videos and one of the “trending” sounds on the app that time was “Any Song”.

Idk but I really thought the song was by an american artist. I loved the beat and idk my brain just thought of it as gibberish english. English is not my first language so the english language/accent sounds gibberish to me and im certain i heard “foundation” “something” thus my brain was convinced it was ang english song lmao.

Until I found out it was korean and thus my love for Zico’s songs started. I immediately streamed like most of his songs.

Then again I’m on tiktok and this song sounds familiar and for weeks that this song/sound was used on my fyp, I accepted that it was a song by Zico... (irdk why I didn’t even checked the sound my bad)

ANNNNDD FAST FORWARD KINGDOM THIS GROUP IKON ACTUALLY WAS THE ONE WHO SANG IT AND THE TITLE WAS LOVE SCENARIO.... zzzzz -.-

[Disclaimer(?): im new to kpop so I didn’t have any idea who ikon was or how big they were and love scenario was back in 2018 forgive me]

A definitely hear a lot of similarities. Everything except the intro. Once the beat drops you can hear almost every single chord progression as in "Angels." Plus bringing out a choir... Seriously, how do Koreans keep getting away with this shit?

Heeseung doing Suga’s part(Boy In Luv)

Last night, EN- did a cover of Boy In Luv. Heeseung did Suga’s parts. A bit of a background if you haven’t seen iLand: He was highly praised by a lot of BigHit producers for his rapping skills(Bang PD, Pdogg, etc) but he wanted to focus on his singing. Seeing him finally show his rap skills last night was just liberating! His words are so clear! I was also impressed by Jake!

Going back to the purpose of this post, here are my thoughts/questions:

1- What makes a good rapper? What makes the rap line of BTS good? (Only answer if you are a fan to begin with, as I would like to avoid logical arguments😉). I know that a lot of idols rap(limiting to the groups I mentioned), but just because you spew a lot of words per minute, it doesn’t mean your rapping is good, right?

2-Can you rank your top 3 in the 4th gen?

3- I know that JK is not in the rap line but isn’t he also a sub rapper(?)?

I also saw a YT post of the fastest rappers(he knows his stuff, so it’s not just a random compilation) & up in his list is RM and Zico. I think Suga was #6 or something. The last time I listened to rap was because of Eminem. I’m glad to be a fan again, thanks to BTS.

Thank you in advance.

Edit: I realize now, that to get to the answers I’m looking for(what makes a good rapper, who are good rappers), I have to remove my limitations to BTS and 4th gen groups in the caption(of which I can’t anymore). So I’m thankful for those who are giving me their valuable thoughts/insights.