also featuring EVERYONE EVER…
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[5.50]
Madeleine Lee: When Epik High announced a track with the word “hater” in the title, it seemed like another desperate attempt not to age out of cool. They’ve indeed plunged into whatever subgenre of rap this is the same way they did with pop-punk on 99, but with fresher results. DJ Tukutz’s beat evokes a funk groove without leaning on retro samples, and over it a clown car of rappers proceed one after the other. Tablo and Mithra Jin position themselves as born haters, the grumpy elders reminding you to respect who came before you. “Dali, Van, Picasso? I’m Velázquez, Millet, El fuckin’ Greco,” Tablo sneers, one verse before Beenzino earnestly brags about sunbae noticing him. (It helps that Tablo is now the nation’s rap dad.) Verbal Jint and Beenzino, both comfortably more admired than hated, turn in solid but unextraordinary verses: sensitive guy VJ presents Haters I Have Known, and Beenzino does his usual “vehicle foreign/bitch is modelin'” thing. It’s the youngest three, all members of YG idol groups, that have the most to prove. Mino of Winner comes off as the least concerned about defending his honour, simply referencing his long history in and out of the underground scene; B.I, like fellow rap idols BTS, has the sense to reposition his idol status as swag status, and is mostly here to crack jokes. Meanwhile, Bobby, fresh off his Show Me the Money win and in need of a cough drop, tries to play the same game as his underground rapper competition (“Commercialize the game and she’s de-e-ad”), which sounds good but is silly coming from an employee of the biggest commercial hip hop label in Korea. That said, there’s always an element of fantasy involved in publicly addressing one’s haters — imagining that they’re listening to you and that they’ll allow themselves to be proven wrong. If Bobby’s role-playing is aspirational, so is Tablo and Mithra’s genre immersion, and we’re meant to cheer them on, not pick them apart. This song is really for the fans, not the haters, and like the little burst of horns under Mithra’s verse, it’s triumphal.
[8]
Will Adams: If you’re looking for concision, you’ve come to the wrong place. A battalion of rappers pummels you with saliva-flecked verses over a dense, colorless beat for five whole minutes.
[3]
Jessica Doyle: “The most obvious characteristic is the boring, long shit you write about the industry.” Fair enough.
[7]
Brad Shoup: This is about as good as a Quarashi-styled posse cut tracked to slap-synthbass can be. Most everyone gets one good joke, except for Tablo, who’s just not going to let his intellectual credentials go unchallenged. This actually protesteth way more than “I Don’t Fuck With You”, but I like their poison better.
[6]
Micha Cavaseno: I’m not really sure why this Korean posse cut of lads trying to be Eminem/Odd Future (and ending up more like an awkward schism between New Kids’ “Tuff” and Depart From Me-era Cage, especially in the irritating sound of the production) works to such a degree. It could be the bemusing regurgitation of the “my girl foreign” trope from an international perspective, or maybe it’s the improbability of hearing a record that’s more interested in a bunch of kids showing off than any “pop sensibility”. I can’t understand a word, and my instincts are suggesting that I probably don’t want or need to. They’re doing fine without me.
[5]
Alfred Soto: That pulsing backing track gets monotonous at five minutes and counting, and the voices, while assured and strong, offer little variety either. Tuff not tough talk.
[4]