Critical Interpretation of Hybrid K-Pop: The Global-Local Paradigm of English Mixing in Lyrics

Abstract

In this essay, we examine the transformation of Korean popular music through an analysis of English mixing in lyrics in a broader socio-cultural context. In order to identify and analyze several key factors involved in the rapid growth of English lyrics in K-Pop, we document the development of English mixing in lyrics of Korean popular music. By surveying the nature of and the extent to which English is employed in K-Pop and how this hybridity is utilized as a discursive means of cultural hybridization, we also map out whether such hybridity has generated new creative cultures, ones which are free from Western dominance, or whether this trend eventually oppresses local music. Our aim was to investigate the contemporary cultural stages and transition of popular music in Korea occurring within the unfolding logic of globalization, and to interrogate the adequacy of cultural hybridity as a plausible framework to explain cultural phenomena currently under way throughout Korea.