What’s Real About Hip-Hop Anywhere?

Stitch3 Comments

Across Hanguk Hip Hop, Myoung-Sun Song seeks to answer several pressing questions about Korean hip hop – made by and for Koreans in Korea for the most part – and one of the ones that has stuck with me is simple, but pointed:

What is real or original about Hanguk hip hop? (6)

It’s a question that I’ve never been able to let go of as I listen to Korean artists, read translated interviews they’ve done, and watched a really large amount of music videos and live performances from a wide range of Korean artists. 

It’s a question that has no real easy answer to me.

Why?

Because, if you watch Korean hip hop music videos or even the idol rappers work with their groups or forays into solo work, a lot of it sounds and looks like the stuff I’d be able to listen to on MTV or BET if they still played music videos. A ton of it looks like stuff I listened to in my teens. 

Read More »

[Stitch Answers Feedback] How Are You Mad About RaceFail 09 Coverage in 2020?

Stitch2 Comments

Just now (like at 9:49PM) I got a comment moderation email from D_Moze’s comment on Why White Supremacy Can No Longer Provide Cover for White Academics by Robin Anne Reid that read:

I was there for Racefail ’09 and every word you say is a filthy lie. Racefail was a couple of grifters and anklebiting anonymous trolls attacking established authors with false accusations of racism, and people like you — people who’ve never contributed a thing but hatred — made bank off of it. Shame on you.

And I since I don’t want to have Robin subject to replying to this nonsense – and I didn’t approve the comment anyway – I decided to take one for the team and reply briefly to this “feedback” so you could see that you were seen… and found frustrating.

D_Moze… In case you missed it, we are in the middle of a pandemic, seeing racist upheaval everywhere, the US still doesn’t have another president called officially, and some of us are poor because of a bunch of those things.

I can’t believe that this is what you decided to do with your time!

Read More »

Link Lineup – November 2020

Stitch1 Comment

I’ve been extremely online across October and I’m happy to say that the internet has not let me down. So I bring y’all some of the best content I’ve found across the internet between October and now!

the return of the pleasure activist

in every single aspect of life, seeking the pleasure in it makes it so much more possible for me to be deeply present in the world and sense what is needed.

now, it has become a politic for me…living not just to the point of survival, but to the point of pleasure. i am certain that pleasure is the missing piece in our movement(s) for a new world.

The first time I heard of someone calling themselves a “pleasure activist”, they were a Rey/Kylo shipper claiming that being a pleasure activist is why they’re so invested in Kylo (“if i center my pleasure on characters who i believe can and should be redeemed then that’s a manifestation of how i hope our world can heal thru pleasure”). So of course, I was kind of a dick about it because I am… kind of a dick about so many things related to Rey/Kylo shippers.

Thankfully, one of my darling social media buddies set me on the right path and showed me what pleasure activism was actually all about. Beyond what that moomoo up there said, the idea of pleasure activism actually does work for me. It’s more aligned with the theorists and thinkers I’ve been consumed by since college than anything else.

And it does not actually support focusing on the redemption of a white man as pleasure activism. That’s not how that works. (But then, that day was when someone compared not wanting a Kylo redemption arc to supporting the carceral state so… that fandom is NOT okay.)

Read More »

[Image Post + Essay] On Performative Anti-Racism

Stitch

Originally posted on Patreon July 29, 2020

Source: On Korean Artists Using Their Platforms to Say that Black Lives Matter

If you’re on social media, I’m sure you’ve seen people show their support of Black Lives Matter as a movement while making it clear that they don’t give a damn about Black people in “their” spaces. 

The folks in fandom with #BLM in their bios or in their display names who tweet snide and shitty things about Black people in their fandoms. The folks who use their – or their celebrity or political favorite’s – donation to charity to say that they care more about Black people than… Black people do. Fans, businesses, and celebrities known for literally making Black people stress out from how they talk about us all were performing anti-racism and professing to be ready to unlearn antiblackness.

Even SM Entertainment got into the swing of things when they released a statement in June about how they were “new to the conversation” (despite hiring Black people to dance, write, record demos, etc for them for decades). 

But it’s all been incredibly performative.

Read More »

[Stitch Talks Ish] Episode 8B: Map of the Soul ON:E – Day Two Reaction

Stitch

Transcript

0:01
So, we’re on episode 8B of Stitch Talks Ish. This is the second part of my virtual concert experience, recapping the second night of BTS’s Map of the Soul ON:E performance. If you were unsure, this is the concert that effectively takes the place of the concert I was supposed to see in May.

0:27
Heartbreaking, isn’t it? We’ve all lost lots of opportunities across this pandemic and not getting to see a concert sucks, but it’s not the worst thing that could have happened, or that even has actually happened, to me and my family— so far.

0:43
But, it was another really great night of paying attention to BTS, and kind of checking out of what was going on in the world around me. So, if you’re ready for another post concert recap, here’s the recording I made right after the concert ended on the 12th. I believe, no, the 11th of October.

1:47 -[musical interlude]

Read More »

Ships ‘n Shit: Lotor/Allura

Stitch2 Comments

Voltron Legendary Defender did all of us dirty.

All of us.

No matter what you actually shipped, chances are that it did not end the way that you wanted it to. In my case, as a serial multishipper, the last half of the series was basically just a constant barrage of “yeah your ship ain’t happening” that didn’t even let up in the final episode. Between the nonsense from the fandom where a huge chunk believed firmly that shipping anything other than their ship was pretty much a sin and another chunk of the fandom went on to be the incredibly icky pro-shipper “anything goes except critical thinking” folks… I get the creators’ response to an extent. Doesn’t mean I like it though.

(A lot of being in the VLD fandom and watching the show as someone who for once wasn’t  a weirdo was feeling like we were being punished for the weird shit that other people did??)

Anyway, one of the ships that I found myself interested in specifically because of a) they were pretty and I’m shallow and b) it had potential to be subversive and sexy (in fandom, not the show… a children’s cartoon) was Lotor and Allura. So in this installment of Ships ‘n Shit, we’re going to talk about Lotura, a little ship that should’ve…

Read More »

Music Video Anatomy #2 – TELÉFONO Remix

Stitch

Title: TELÉFONO Remix 

Artist: pH-1, HAON, Woodie Gochild, Jay Park, Sik-K, TRADE L, Big Naughty

Setting: This music video – which does double duty as a lyric video – is set in a Mexican restaurant in what appears to be a strip mall. It’s different from the go-to setting that several past H1GHR Music artists have gone with in their hip hop pasts – high school gym, dark alleys, night clubs. The novelty of the setting works for the song… mostly.

Read More »

[Stitch Talks Ish] Episode 8A: Map of the Soul ON:E – Day One Reaction

Stitch

Transcript

0:01
Hello, Darlings!

0:03
I think this is officially episode eight. The episode looking back at BTS’s releases from Dynamite, their Japanese release Map of the Soul: The Journey, and anything else that I didn’t cover in my last two BTS album related episodes – that’s still in the pipe works. I’m lazy, so – and busy – so it is taking me a little bit longer than I expected to get to that.

0:39
But one thing I have gotten to do in October is watch a BTS concert.

0:46
Like everyone around the world in 2020, all live music entertainment has kind of ground to a halt unless the artist you’re interested in is doing virtual, digital – on tact, I believe is the term many Korean artists are using – performances where it attempts to forge digital intimacy with a global audience.

1:14
So I’ve seen four concerts so far: Wonho’s kind of debut concert, his solo concert after exiting Monsta X-, A.C.E.’s virtual concert which is my second A.C.E. concert, because I saw them live in December 2019, and again two BTS concerts, both nights of the Map of the Soul ON:E concert.

Read More »

Urban Fantasy 101: Stitch Reads The Hollows – Dead Witch Walking Chapters 21-25

Stitch

Content warnings: a reference to animal cruelty at the start and a brief mention of sexual violence as a in general at the start and as a plot point near the end.

When we last left our intrepid witch in mink form, Rachel was about to get thrown to the rats. 

Literally, apparently. 

Chapter twenty ended with Trent and Jonathan keke-ing over how Rachel is caught in their trap and stuck as a mink. Chapter twenty-one begins with Jonathan pretty much torturing Rachel since she’s trapped in her cage – and I vaguely know what they look like so this has been a whole thing where I… pretend I know what a mink is when visualizing this part of the book. 

Read More »

Thread Collection: Scapegoats (6/6/2019)

Stitch

Originally posted as a thread on Twitter on June 6, 2019

Can we all agree that it’s beyond fucked up that across multiple fandom spaces, Black people IN fandom, when critical OF fandom (usually for racism/racist fan works), are seen/portrayed as ATTACKING or POLICING “real members of fandom” and ruining fandom for THEM?

I got accused of attacking people when I was nice, when I was actually mean (mocking folks who were missing the point on my posts), and even now when I don’t engage.

Read More »

Thread Collection: FFA Racism Instance (7/22/20)

Stitch

Originally a thread on Twitter. Collecting threads to make things more accessible since I essay there too for folks off of twitter.

Oh sorry not gone because guess what, people keep lying on me (and Rukmini) in this whole AO3 thing amd like I actually state clearly what I’m about but these smooth brained racist mother fuckers turn off their reading abilities when they see me referenced (ffa.rocks/?t=2609548751)

(Aside from the fact that even if the OTW reached out to ask me if I could come on as a consultant, I wouldn’t do it because

a) full time job where I’m valued and

b) I’m not willing to fling myself into THAT racist fire, the anger at the idea that people could pay me for anti racism training is one that is actually been going on as long as I’ve had a patreon.

Nevermind, again, that 90% of my content on racism in fandom is free and either here or on my site. Or that the people who hate me won’t read it anyway. I’m apparently the only person in fandom who cannot charge for my work in fandom – which I’m already NOT ACTUALLY DOING.)

Anyway: I wonder how many of those racist little worms still have blm in their Twitter bios? (That link is a fail fandom anon mobile version which means that anons can and will say all kinds of nasty shit they want about fans of color like me, Holly, and Rukmini even as they pretend they care about anti racism in fandom. Tagging won’t solve this shit either. Like these people don’t know me and they apparently can’t read and yet… Here they are.)

Read More »

Music Video Anatomy #1 – Born Hater

Stitch

Music Video Anatomy is something I’ve been considering for a few weeks now especially in the context of my ongoing project on anti/blackness in Korean pop and hip hop. I tweet a lot of music video links during the day and I wanted to collect some of my thoughts and music recs somewhere more organized than that site. Hence this new recurring feature. It won’t all be modern Korean pop/hip hop – I have been revisiting older pop and hip hop here in the US – but it’ll skew heavily towards that!

Title: Born Hater

Artist: Epik High featuring Beenzino, Verbal Jint, MINO (Winner), Bobby (iKON), and B.I

Read More »

[Guest Post] Co-watching Academia, Locating Happiness

Stitch1 Comment

Over the last few months, a few friends and I have been meeting online semi-regularly to watch pre-recorded conference panels or academic talks. While this originally began as a system of mutual accountability around a seminar series, it’s since mutated into an actually enjoyable part of my downtime.

After years of struggle, the academic conference experience suddenly has room for joy again. It’s been a damn revelation to me! 

Read More »