Nan Arayo (I Know)

On April 11, 1992, a trio in baggy streetwear and backwards baseball caps performed their debut single on an MBC talent show and got the lowest score from the jury. The song was Nan Arayo, released weeks earlier on March 23, and written and produced entirely by the group's leader, Seo Taiji. The judges did not know what to make of it. Korean audiences did. Nan Arayo mixed rap, new jack swing and rock guitars with a pop chorus, and its lyrics dealt with problems in Korean society rather than the usual romance. It became one of the first Korean rap songs to reach the mainstream. The video, directed by Ko Jae-hyung and inspired by Technotronic's Pump Up the Jam and Snap's The Power, played with saturated colour and chroma key while the dancers kept shifting angles. The song held number one for 17 consecutive weeks, a record at the time, collected 26 wins on music programs that year and took the grand prize at the Seoul Music Awards. NPR later noted that for many young South Koreans it was their first exposure to hip-hop. A wave of hip-hop and R&B acts followed in its wake, from Deux and Jinusean to Drunken Tiger. In a 2008 survey of 100 industry experts it ranked first among the best Korean songs ever, and Rolling Stone wrote that it steered Korea toward the group-driven pop scene known today. The televised flop of that April evening is now widely treated as the moment modern K-pop was born.