M.I.B.‘s debut last year arguably received a lot of spotlight, as they were the first idol style hip hop group to be produced by Jungle Entertainment, a label nicknamed the ‘SM of Hip Hop’.
In their latest interview with Sports Donga, the boys admitted that their results fell short of expectations, despite their confidence in their abilities. The boys began, “We felt that there hadn’t been a hip hop group like us yet and knew that we had a differentiating factor so there was the anticipation that we’d hit daebak. The public, however, was cold. Things didn’t go the way we thought, and we were also lacking, as well as ‘G.D.M.’ sounding kind of countrified… We thought it was cool at the time, but we thought wrong.”
M.I.B. is no longer an ‘idol hip hop group’ and now stand on unclear grounds, which is their latest concern. “There is a bit of an idol factor in us but we’re not actually idols. We’re concerned that people will not be able to see where we stand.”
They continued, “There hasn’t been a hip hop group since 1TYM, and we’re confident that we’re unique, though. Hip hop can never be a leading genre in the Korean music industry, which is why we’re honestly not traditional in the hip hop sense. We’re kind of mixed. It’ll take a lot of time for our underground industry to be accepted by the public like in America. We’re going to aid in that effort.”
On their debut, they added, “It might be fortunate for us that we didn’t do well right from the start because it might’ve made us lazy. It’s because we fared poorly that we were determined to create even better music and continue to grow.”
On their comeback track, “Only Hard for Me“, the boys expressed, “Our goal for our debut was to get our name out there in Korean hip hop but I think we’ve stepped a bit off from there. Instead, we want this new album to allow us to be one step closer with the public and act as a stepping stone to the production of our next album.”
The boys concluded, “Our goal this year was to win a rookie award, but there have been a lot of amazing debuts like Ailee and Busker Busker (laughter)! We’d be content with just being nominated since we can work for the ‘Daesang’ next year. We want to be a group that represents Korean hip hop. A name that always has the tag ‘hip hop’ coming after it. It’d be great if we could become role models for future artists pursuing hip hop as well.”
Source & Images: Donga via Naver
