Hello Kitty Getting Hella Old

CL “Hello Bitches”

You might remember CL as a rapper in the K-Pop group 2NE1, who I’ve featured here a few times, and from her feature on one of the best tracks on Skrillex’s last album. She started out mainly rapping in Korean but is transitioning into a bid for worldwide/American success, and this new single is mostly rapped in English. In either language, she’s an impressive and forceful rapper, even if a lot of her moves can seem like the work of a person who’s carefully studied Lil Kim and Nicki Minaj records for years. On a musical level, “Hello Bitches” sounds very American, but even if they’re in English CL’s lyrics are unapologetically South Korean – she’s seamlessly dropping local slang into traditional rap structures, and about half the lines address Asian stereotypes – dismissing the more hateful shit, but having fun with other aspects of it and generally repping for Asian girls all over the place. It’ll be fun to see where she goes with this in 2016. I’d love to see her actually cross over here, because she’s so fun and there’s disturbingly few Asian pop stars in American culture.

Buy it from iTunes.