Korean rapper ready for U.S. tour
For hip-hop artist San E (born San Jung), the decade he spent living in the United States made a huge impact on his music. “I didn’t really know what hip-hop and rap (were) when I was in (South) Korea,” he says. “And then I moved to Atlanta when I was in middle school and just naturally started paying attention to it, because it was everywhere. I was lucky, even though I didn’t think so as a kid. Atlanta has a lot of great musicians. The music scene is pretty diverse, and I was just going with it.”
Phoning from Seoul, the bilingual rapper said he was excited about his first nationwide tour of the U.S.
An edited version of our conversation follows.
A. Beat and flow-wise, there’s a lot of similarity. But lyricwise, it’s very different. Subject matters can differ, depending on what’s going on in your country to an extent. In Korea, you don’t say, “I’ve been popping!” You don’t rap about guns, because it’s not an issue for us.
A: Oh, wow. I want to be their tour guide — free of charge! Korea is a safe country, and a lot of places are open 24 hours. There are lots of taxis and buses and subways that are easy to take. The food here is great. If you have jet lag at 3 a.m. and are hungry, you can grab some delicious food from a street (cart). There are lots of goodlooking guys and beautiful ladies, so it’s fun to peoplewatch. And liquor’s cheap! (Laughs.) For foreigners, visit Itaewon, which has lots of (expats). Young people go there to check out the clubs, which have everything from jazz to hip-hop to R&B to EDM.