South Korea’s hip hop king, Drunken Tiger’s Tiger JK (nee Jung Kwon Seo), went on yesterday’s MBC produced “Mureuppak Gru” and spoke about the racism he endured both in the states and in Korea.
On the show, Tiger JK spoke of how he was very surprised at how racist Koreans were toward people of other ethnicities, specifically those who were black, and described a racist incident that occurred in South Korea when his African American rapper friend came into the country to perform with him.
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“I returned to Korea in the late 1990s for the first time in about 10 years. At that time, I heard that Korea is a nation of etiquette that welcomes everybody,” he said. “But it was not. I came across racism here too. I was often told by many Koreans not to go along with the `n-gger.’ It was a shock.”
He also spoke of the Los Angeles Riots and the adversity he faced because of race. One eye-opening experience was when his idol, Ice Cube, released a Korean hate-filled tantrum in “Black Korea,” released a year before the riots. Consequently, the rapper released “Call Me Tiger,” a song that responded to the racism that was meant to empower Asians. It was also revealed that the song was performed while mixing taekwondo. The song eventually propelled the hip hop star who even landed on the pages of XXL Magazine where he had a one-page feature.
Earlier this year, Tiger JK angrily tweeted about the racism his son, Jordan (whose mother is South Korea’s queen of soul, Tasha), endured from Korean netizens:
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“can’t be liked by everybody i know, there’s an article about Jordan, and some of them relpys make me sick,,,,talkin about race,”
“talki bout his hair being nappy and he looks black, they prolly like 12, prolly yong kidz but hopefully they learn”
“Comments are always like that but there are actually kids who say things like half black half black. Racism won’t disappear forever.”
“racism, im sure they dont know no better,it’s ma fault for xposing ma son like that tho when they call ma son up to the stage i had a feelin”
“cant believe the are going as far as using the N word, they need to get the ass whooped by they pops, ignorant ass younginz”
“I know that half of the comments are written by kids who want attention but people still use the expression black.”
“ha im used to bein hated / called all kinds of name it comes wit territory / but in the states i was called a chink ,N now the N word here”
“they could hate all they could, im here for that im used to bein hated, chewed on, jk wack this and that, but can dey just C wat dey C,Love”
“callin ma wife and me kid, nappy headed N***R , i wish they would see me in the street”
“^^ I’m a father so I went crazy over hate comments. I’m sorry.”
“peops are so lonely like me da would say anytihing behind the walls of matrix to say things that would get em attention,i pray for they soul”
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