Review Summary: you was fuckin up the process i'm boutta take out ur legs
Right, look, so: I love Korea and its cuisine and cinema; I've grown fond of K-pop to extents I'm increasingly uncomfortable with; I had a ball the one time I passed through Seoul (there was a magical cat that ran along a rooftop like a sexy black-ops angel of sass, and an old lady who took the most conspicuous relish of anyone I've ever encountered at fare dodging on the metro) — but it's a long way from the first market I'd turn to for hip hop. Is this at all contentious? Do
you listen to Korean hip hop? Most of my exposure comes filtered through K-pop, which for better and worse integrates hip hop into the same ultra-sanitised pastiche as any other international pop trend that comes its way, or else through the inevitable bygone meme tracks (Psy < 3). All of which is fun and cogent to its style, but the artists in question seem more to play with commercial ideas of rap rather than to
claim hip hop with enough grit and swagger to be more than a condiment to whichsoever sugar rush.
But not Yunhway — this girl rips like a rope burn, investing equal parts in no-fucks-given trap throwdowns and sanguine R&B earworms, both of which hard enough to make me question whether I've
got it all wrong!? Her full-length debut
YUNHWAY flies in the face of every ultra-polished, squeaky-clean stereotype I'd entertained (not to mention the tepid R&B EPs she released when she was signed off the back of the Korean talent show
Show Me the Money in 2019). Half of this is down to chops and attitude (both of which she packs in spades), but the other half is testament to production that gives her as spartan a ballpark as possible to shoot her shot.
This is much is immediately obvious on the pop-rap opener "Lost In", on which she works her stuff backed by nothing more than a single loop of decaying synth hits. This austere spotlight adds unusual edge to a chord progression and choice of vocal hooks that are otherwise palatable to the point of innocuous, and it's a similar story from here on out: the production defers the impact of each song almost entirely to her performance, and so when things do get fractious, their impact is all the more visceral for how it stems directly from the other end of her mic. Yunhway spits filth on "Prophecies", oozes ego over "Carpe Diem", dices syllables into an autotuned frenzy at the end of "BANG & SPIT", belts out last year's catchiest pump-up jam over a skittering breakbeat on "SCREAM", and still finds time for a handful of melodious R&B winners on the likes of "TALK! WALK!" and "Ibiza": her powerhouse delivery is central to the record, and, with a writing credit on every track, she doesn't piss around when it comes to making her mark in her own name. Far from the plasticated products of her previous material,
YUNHWAY is every inch a volatile personal statement.
There's collateral damage to be chalked up on that front.
YUNHWAY is far from an even listen, though it's bullish and confident enough to take its rough edges in its stride. One raises an eyebrow at the tendency of certain songs to end on a dime rather than with a strong resolution (something borne out on a wider scale in the rather piecemeal closer "Running Out of Time"), and also in the sequencing of the three hardest bangers back to back (from "Prophecies" to "BRING ME MORE"), but if the album is strong performances first, strong 'songs' second, and balanced sequencing only for those who care to pick up that legwork, then it still holds its own through sheer conviction and an unmistakably clear voice. Yes, it helps to that end that Yunhway grew up in the States, that her English is fluent, and that there's hardly a word of Korean to be heard on this album outside of features, but if this is what it takes to get her weapons-grade
take it back lil bitching to land like it does on the scorched-earth bombast of "Prophecies", then you can raise a fucking glass to the joys of cultural exchange.
