http://www.npr.org/2012/09/15/161147846/k-pops-new-king
8 min interview
ok, he's a cool guy....still that song is
g a r b a g e
PSY Finds His Success With 'Gangnam Style' Unreal
by THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
SEOUL, South Korea September 25, 2012, 07:59 am ET
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korean rapper PSY finds his success with "Gangnam Style" so unreal that he wonders if he's being tricked into believing it — like Jim Carrey in "The Truman Show."
PSY said Tuesday in a press conference in Seoul that he cried in disbelief when his song entered the Billboard 100 earlier this month. The 34-year-old now says he'll go topless in joy on a stage if "Gangnam Style" tops the chart. The song's at number 11 this week.
The music video for "Gangnam Style" has more than 270 million YouTube views and counting. People around the world are mimicking PSY's horse-riding dance in the video.
THE GUY:
More mainstream K-Pop performers, already famous in South Korea and across Asia, have tried and failed to crack the American market.
So how did PSY — aka Park Jae-sang — a stocky, 34-year-old rapper who was fined nearly $4,500 for smoking marijuana after his 2001 debut, get to be the one teaching Britney Spears how to do the horse-riding dance on American TV?
"I'm not handsome, I'm not tall, I'm not muscular, I'm not skinny," PSY recently said on the American "Today" TV show. "But I'm sitting here."
He attributed his success to "soul or attitude."
PSY, whose stage name stems from the first three letters of the word psycho, has always styled himself as a quirky outsider. But he is from a wealthy family and was actually raised and educated south of the Han River, near Gangnam.
He's an excellent dancer, a confident rapper and he's funny, but another reason for his breakthrough could be that less-than-polished image, said Jae-Ha Kim, a Chicago Tribune pop culture columnist and former music critic.
South Korean music has scored big in Asia with bands featuring handsome, stylish, makeup-wearing young men, including Super Junior and Boyfriend. But seeing such singers "makes some Americans nervous," Kim said.
"People in America are comfortable with Asian guys who look like Jackie Chan and Jet Li, who are good-looking, but they're not the equivalent of Brad Pitt or Keanu Reeves," Kim said.
Part of the initial interest in "Gangnam Style," Kim said, was a kind of "freak-show mentality, where people are like, 'This guy is funny.' But then you look at his choreography and you realize that you really have to know how to dance to do what he does. He's really good."
