Inspiration Or Imitation? Cultural Appropriation in K-Pop
The K-Pop industry has had one reoccurring controversy in its three-decade long career, the appropriation of black culture. Whether it be wearing box braids or borrowing dance styles and claiming them as their own, the racial insensitivity weaving throughout the industry has been a problem since K-Pop’s debut in the 1990s. So what is changing in 2025?
By Lyndsey Harrison
Even though it has taken almost 30 years for K-Pop to go global, it has always been the industry’s goal. That’s why many companies resort to using others cultures as album concepts with the aim of drawing in more fans. This is how the controversy starts.
The biggest issue throughout K-Pop’s evolution is the focus on using black culture and African fashion to evoke exoticness, sassiness, and edginess within their musical concepts.
Braided hair, cornrows, and dreadlocks stem from the 1960s African-American Black Power movement, in which these hairstyles were used in protest of slavery due to most Africans being forced to shave their heads during their involuntary transport to America. But, within K-Pop, cornrows and box braids have been repeatedly used as costume for ‘exotic’ concepts. Until the early years of 3rdGen, the harvesting of black culture in this way was a normality for K-Pop, especially in the hip hop
and rap scene. Some examples include EXO’s Kai and B Block’s Zico facing serious backlash for wearing cornrows in their early years. Another example would be popular group (G)I-DLE when they took inspiration from black fashion trends from the 90s in their 2019 single ‘Uh-Oh’. This song is a rebellious hip-hop song which, despite being a great listen, disappointed fans. This was due to their promotion of African, Indian, and Indigenous stereotypes through fashion, their behaviour in the music video (m/v), and the song style itself.
It is worth noting that South Korean artists were practically invisible outside of their own country up until five to ten years ago; therefore, South Korean artists were used to being confined to their small country in the far east of Asia.
Unfortunately, as much as the industry may use this as their defence, the cultural appropriation within K-Pop seems to stem from this desire to go global. They attempt to appeal to other cultures without the willingness to learn from those cultures and avoid what could be deemed offensive. South Korea is known for being ‘undiverse’ which almost completely contributes to this lack of understanding.
What Has Changed Going Into 2025?
However, in recent years there has been a notable increase in a willingness to learn by K-Pop idols and their companies. Since the surge of global popularity, most controversy (including cultural appropriation) is responded to within 24 hours of it occurring, and the frequency of incidents as serious as this seems to be on the decline. This gives netizens confidence that Korean idols are slowly starting to navigate cultural sensitivity, especially within their music.
Unique K-Pop Groups Debuting in 2025
MYTRO – a boy group combining K-Pop and traditional Korean music
(also known as trot)
Polarix – a Chinese-Korean blended boy group, incorporating both cultures
and performance styles
Scan here for the new and rediscovered sounds of K-Pop in 2025.
Project C - an all Chinese boy group encompassing their Fanling Culture into
their music
GLX – a seven member global girl group with an intergalactic concept
