Music Blends Korean Tradition with Modern American Sound
By Michael Mosettig | November 12, 2007 | Korea
She is a fusion person. She sings what she calls fusion music, part of a Korean wave of song, film and TV soap opera that has gained wide popularity across Asia.
Her name is Insooni, born Kim In-Soon, the daughter of a Korean mother and an African-American father who served in the U.S. military. Her mother raised her alone, sending her to an international school to help avoid the social stigma that can befall mixed-race children here. Now 50 with a daughter of her own, she has been singing and dancing since she was 21.
Singer Insooni. Photo Credit: Insooni Web siteHer publicity sheet calls her \"South Korea's acclaimed R&B; diva.\" Insooni has performed in Carnegie Hall, her latest song \"Goose Dreams\" is on YouTube. But her growing audience, beyond her home country, is across Southeast Asia, where the music that combines an American sound with Korean lyrics and sometimes Korean instrumentation is very much in vogue.
Insooni met over a Korean lunch with our group of editors and producers. She was joined by two filmmakers. Byun Young-jo, 40, comes out of South Korea's politically active generation that helped push the country to democracy in the late 1980s. Her best known works are three films on the Korean \"comfort women,\" the sex-slaves for Japanese troops during World War II and the Japanese occupation of Korea. Ryu Mi-rye, 36, is a journalist and documentarian, who recently has focused on films dealing with the mentally and physically handicapped.
In our conversation, all three reflected on some of the major impulses running through Korean culture -- its new reach and popularity through the rest of Asia, the post-Korean War influence of American culture, the artistic freedoms that came with democracy, particularly in the last decade, and how increasingly artists relate to their audiences through technology, especially in Korea, where 38 million of the country's almost 50 million people use wireless mobile technology.
As Insooni said, in the 1950s and into the '60s, the only modern music young Koreans heard were the sounds blaring from the radios of U.S. Military bases in and around Seoul. Here, as almost everywhere, Hollywood has captured a large chunk of the movie-going audiences. The struggle for local filmmakers to get a foothold against the Hollywood colossus, Byun warned, could be set back as the recently concluded free trade agreement between the U.S. and South Korea may wipe out local content laws requiring Korean movie theaters to carry a certain number of Korean films.
A highly educated population with an easy comfort level with technology produces its own challenges for artists, Byun said.
\"Artists are influenced by comments on the Internet. Many artists don't care about newspaper critics, but they do care about critiques on the net. Korea is a high-speed country. You can't just get by. You will get passed by by your competitors. There is a high level of tension and pressure for artists here.\"
She added that Korea is often a test market for U.S. films, sometimes being released nearly simultaneously in both countries.
\"Though Korea is a high speed country, it moves faster in culture than in anything else. I travel to foreign countries, and you don't see people adapting as fast to the avant-garde, as fast as the Korean people.\"
Asked about the popularity of American culture despite polls showing mass disapproval of Bush administration policies, Byun responded:
\"Isn't that a worldwide trend? It is an international and worldwide trend of hating the Bush administration and waiting for the next election. But the entire world enjoys American culture.\"
To Insooni I put the question, based on all of three days here, that Koreans seemed to love to sing and sing well. She smiled and lit up as the interpreter put the question to her.
\"Korea is full of power, lots of energy. All Koreans need to find a little moment when they can put all their energy and power together to make a big event.\"
She cited as an example, on the eve of the 2002 World Cup, hundreds of thousands gathering in front of Seoul City Hall and singing songs in one voice. Singing and music have been an important element in Korean history, she added. Koreans sing at all important events, and they have songs for all settings and events -- farmers working in rice paddies, hikers in the mountains, at funerals.
\"Life lies in Korean song and music,\" Insooni added.
\"Lots of Koreans sing so well that I feel threatened as a professional.\"
Though she said it with a laugh and smile, it's hard to imagine an American or British pop singer of equal stature harboring, much less giving voice to such sentiments.
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