“The Baddest Female” Breaks America
Born in 1991, CL (Chaerin Lee) is an eminent Korean pop star from South Korea. She is a talented performer-artist-musician who can do it all from singing and dancing, to songwriting and rapping. Originally the leader of a widely acclaimed four member K-pop girl group, 2NE1, CL is now striving towards an independent career in America. More recently, she has collaborated with well known producer Diplo and manager Scooter Braun — who has also represented noted celebrities such as Justin Bieber and Ariana Grande — to make her debut in the States with an album that she composed completely in English for the first time ever. CL began her tour in the U.S. on October 29 just a few months after releasing her single “Lifted,” which established her as the first Korean female solo artist to enter the Billboard’s Hot 100 chart.
Besides setting new records within the Korean music industry, CL’s “Lifted” video has stirred a controversy over claims of cultural appropriation. In the music video, above, CL roams the streets (or the “hood” according to some disparagers) of New York City while dancing and partying with a crowd consisting mostly of people of color. Wearing stacks of gold and waving brown bags of 40s in the air, she confidently rolls deep with her crew, chilling on the basketball court and fire escapes. CL’s overall attire and gestures further give off a strong hip-hop vibe as the group seems to be smoking and drinking to the lyrics that mention getting high, or “lifted.” This comes as an incredible culture shock to many Korean fans, as marijuana usage is strictly forbidden in South Korea. Moreover, others have criticized CL of plagiarizing Wu-Tang Clan’s successful track “Method Man,” as “Lifted” is a direct interpolation of it, with similar lyrics except in a more positive, laid-back style/tone. (This allegation, however, is irrational because CL’s video actually features Method Man himself personally making an appearance, asserting his approval and appreciation of her sampling.)
While these factors may attribute to the accusations of CL appropriating black culture, critics must grasp and understand the atypical upbringing of this star. What greatly differentiates CL from other K-pop virtuosos is that although born in Seoul, she was raised studying abroad at multiple international schools during her youth, giving her the privilege of speaking Korean, Japanese, French, and English fluently. Despite the advantages of growing up multinationally, CL states in an interview that it was hard for her because she felt like an alien who didn’t fit into any group due to constantly moving around. Regardless of the difficulties of assimilating into new environments, CL mentions how fortunate she was to have been able to grow up around people of all kinds of races and different backgrounds, enabling her to not have any prejudices against anyone. With that being said, I believe that CL never had any intentions of cultural misappropriation and rather aimed to break stereotypes within the traditional, conservative Korean community.
While some of her loyal supporters may seemed to have anticipated more of the original K-pop elements rather than a completely different style for a Western audience in her new single, other South Korean fans have also expressed a certain bitterness about CL leaving their motherland for America. In his essay “The Migrant’s Time,” Ranajit Guha describes the diasporan as a migrant as “someone who has gone away from what was home” and further compares the migrant to “an apostate, because, by leaving the homeland, he has been unfaithful to it.” To a degree, CL may be classified under Guha’s definition of the migrant because she did in fact leave Korea to live in the U.S. currently — however, people must acknowledge how she was brought up learning and experiencing multiple cultures without even ever getting a proper education in Korean language, perhaps insisting that she never felt wholly apart of one specific group. Concerning her sister too, CL expresses that,
“Even when we were in Korea, we did not share the Korean culture, and when we were abroad, we were viewed simply as Asians.”
It should be extensively recognized that CL’s early life undoubtedly nurtured her to embrace cultures from all around the world. As a personal fan of CL since Day 1, I am extremely thrilled to see her great ambitions come alive into the West. It is inspiring how CL is not afraid to express herself or put limits on herself by adopting other cultures, and is “Breaking America” while representing Asians for the first time within the American music industry. Haters can hate, but I think CL’s “Lifted” was heavily intended to pay tribute to hip hop’s early beginnings, in order to grasp the attention of the Western audience.
