Seo Taiji and Tiger JK, two of Korean music’s pioneers, will collab on stage together August 8th.
The two musicians will perform a special set on the second day of Pentaport Rock Festival at Songdo, Incheon City. MFBTY will be a guest of SeoTaiji’s and they will perform two of Seotaiji’s groundbreaking songs, “Ha Yu Ga,” and “Classroom Idealogy.”
Seotaiji has been called the father of Korean pop culture. He and his then group, Seotaiji Boys, changed Korean music with their song, “I Know,” and introduced the element of rap into the scene. Tiger JK & YoonMirae are said to be the pioneers of hip-hop culture. The three artists coming together is a major event in Korean music history.
Tickets for Pentaport can be purchased via Interpark or through the Pentaport website. Ticket prices vary based on quantity and the day(s) attending.
“Baseball God,” Kim Sung Guen and “Hip-Hop King,” Tiger JK
According to the Korean baseball League, the HanWha Eagles are preparing a top secret cheer project with hip-hop legend, Tiger JK. The Eagles are having a great year and have a strong fan following. The team believes this project with Tiger JK will strengthen team spirit.
Fans of the Eagles have been using an old cheer anthem, and the new anthem will mark a new chapter in Eagles history. This year, team manager, Kim Sung Guen, has led the team on a winning streak, earning his name as “Baseball God.” The HanWha Eagles are now amongst the top 5 teams.
This cheer project for the Eagles will include a partnership with Tiger JK’s project group, MFBTY. It will also embed Tiger JK into baseball history.
A rep from the Eagles stated that, “This is the best gift we could give fans. From the performer invited to the conception, we couldn’t sell the fans short. We wanted the best quality.”
Tiger JK’s song, “Monster,” is already a much loved cheer song by baseball fans. The baseline to “Monster” (bam-ba-ba-ba-ba-bam) is used by the Doosan Bears to encourage their pitcher to be more tenacious.
The Hanwha corporation sought out Tiger JK for a long time, and were surprised when he finally came on board for the project.
The new Eagles cheer will debut this month and has high expectations. It is said that for a performer to create a cheer anthem like this is rare, but it is progressing quickly and is gaining much attention.
Hanwha also plans to make a music video to accompany the song. While many teams have made videos to cheer their team on, this is the first time a baseball team has created a music video for their team. The video will be directed by Feel Ghood Music resident videographer, Lumpens.
Tiger JK’s song will be the rebirth for the Eagles and will express the fighting spirit of the team. According to officials, the melody is easy, but powerful enough to encourage both the team and the fans.
On July 1st, TigerJK tweeted a teaser promo photo for his new single, “I Know,” marking July 2nd as its release date. Only a mere hours later, FeelGhoodMusic felt 24 hours was too long and dropped the music video early as a treat.
“I Know” takes on a different format from a traditional MV, appearing more like a webisode and only including part of the song. In the video, we see TigerJK peacefully reading at a bus stop when two thugs (Bizzy & Dino) suddenly kidnap him and stuff him into a car trunk. TigerJK raps his verses while trapped inside, his verses standing in for his screams.
The full song will still drop on Itunes and other download sites tomorrow, July 2nd.
Noisey interviewed MFBTY recently and discussed with them the origins of their name and the meaning behind their album. MFBTY had nothing but good things to say about the people who inspired them to continue on past all their struggles.
So the name MFBTY came out of this community you found on Twitter of K-pop fandom?
Tiger JK: When I started tweeting, the first group of people that actually started talking to me was from Brazil. So just imagine—we didn’t think we were popping in Korea, and someone from Brazil will talk to us! And I was like “Hey, how do you know me?” And I was chatting with them and they were from different fandoms. And it was sort of an inside joke between them, ‘cause I was kind of like the UN for all these fans from different groups. The inside joke was “my fans are better than yours,” so the fans made the name. One day it kind of snowballed into something, and people were writing MFBTY graffiti in London and Spain and Italy, and we became something like a cult.
After the colorful time travel piece that was MFBTY’s “BangDiggyBangBang,” the drop of Tiger JK’s newest single “Good To See You Again,” comes as a complete 180 to fans. The bluesy single is a love song with references dedicated to Tiger JK’s fans, but the music video does not take on the traditional love song video formula.
The simple video takes viewers through Tiger JK’s Uijeongbu neighborhood, all areas he cites as places that are part of his everyday life. We also see a vision board and flashbacks of his career highlights, a special trip down memory line for fans.
However, what fans may be shocked to see are the spliced dream sequences that take JK through different, sometimes questionable, adventures. When asked why he made such a video, JK stated he wanted to show fans a realistic reflection of both himself and situations that do happen in real life.
Long time fans of JK know that he is no stranger to keeping things simple. In the past week, JK posted a series of old photos (see here and here) showing how he used to rock shows. In one photo, he shares:
“Tiger JK couldn’t afford stage clothes and didn’t give a F. Just walked up to the TV shows and performed. All I needed was a mic and my rhymes.”
His low budget MVs are signature to him, showing after all the fame, he is a simple guy who does not live the flashy celebrity life. “Good To See You Again” the MV is a time trip for his loyal fans, while also showing how his down to Earth personality has not changed.
Today, June 15th, it was unexpectedly announced that JK would drop a new single, without the other MFBTY members, on June 16th.
The song, “Nice To See You Again,” is a letter to JK’s fans who have supported him since his career started, particularly his Korean fan club, Tigerbalm. The cover photo dated 05/03/1999 is a photo he took in Los Angeles, while he was preparing for his second album, “The Great Rebirth.”
In the past week, JK had released a series of old photos with messages such as “Tigerbalm, love.” JK was also seen filming questionable solo scenes in the Uijeongbu neighborhood. It is now confirmed that this was connected to the “Nice To Meet You” single.
While Tiger JK has dropped a few lighter themed OST singles this year, it has been 6 years (his 8th album)since JK has released a track that was only him.
MFBTY let loose at Greenplugged Festival, May 24th
“My style is a bit rough but since this is a festival with kids, I’ll tone it down a little. I won’t even say, ‘Let’s smash them.’ I’ll say, ‘Let’s bounce!’”
Tiger JK, Yoon Mi Rae, and Bizzy rocked the finale stage of 2015 Green Plugged, which was held on May 24, 2015 at 9pm.
The trio, (who are known as MFBTY) turned the grassy fields into a club as soon as their set started. Tiger JK jumped off the stage to meet the fans face to face, splashing water from his bottle and shouting like a rock star. The reporter met the drenched Tiger JK backstage right after their set.
We Lost Everything
Tiger JK is slowly climbing up from the bottom. In February 2014, his father passed away after a long fight with cancer. TigerJK said he lost absolutely everything at that time. As Drunken Tiger, (who topped the Korean music charts on several occasions) he made enough money for him to say, “I just want to do my kind of music now”. These days however, “If I don’t work today, I can’t guarantee I can put food on my family’s table, it’s that tough right now.”
For him, being on the bottom is somewhat familiar. Back in 2000, right after his debut, he was arrested for allegedly taking prohibited substances (all charges were later dropped). Back in 2006, he was diagnosed with Transverse Myelitis, and cannot properly function if he does not take his medication four times daily.
MFBTY, started back in 2011 on Twitter when they playfully stated, “My Fans are Better Than Yours.” This joke spread through the Twitter world through their international fans.
“This started out as a joke and back in 2013, we released a single called, ‘Sweet Dreams’. It was a massive hit overseas, to the point we were invited to Cannes MIDEM festival. We thought, “Alright, that was cool”, and were preparing to do our individual music. Then our fans continuously sent us well wishing messages about my father. It just built up from there.”
Like a roller coaster, there are ups and downs in life. After Tiger JK’s father passed away, MFBTY released an album to thank their fans entitled Wondaland. This album charted No. 8 in the 1st week of April on the Billboard World Album Charts. MFBTY was even invited to perform at the annual Dream Concert in May this year. With this overwhelming international response to their music, the tracks on the ‘Wondaland’ album charted on Korean music charts as well.
We Are Not doing Hip Hop
“People around us are asking us to change our group name to something like ‘Yoon Mi Rae & MFBTY or Drunken Tiger & MFBTY. But our name started with our fans so how dare we change it? Anyway, we went on air after a 3 year hiatus with everything saying that, “it’s the Hip Hop era in Korea right now” but they just wanted us to dance and rap, leaving out all the DJing, Drums, or VJ. Witnessing that, we are just doing our thing on stages. Hard as it may be.” As Tiger JK stated, MFBTY is doing the majority of their appearances on stages purely based on word-of-mouth from other festival attendees and organizers.
At the Green Plugged Festival, Tiger JK thanked the crowd, (even though most of them may not know them) pointing to the fact that the majority of the crowd were females in their 20’s. However, even the hardcore fans who followed Tiger JK from the Drunken Tiger days would’ve been a bit perplexed with the set. Their stage set started with Hip Hop, then a rendition of “I Heard Some Rumor” by Jang Gi Ha and The Faces, Bob Marley’s- “Jamming”, and a dash of Trot in there as well. It was vaguely reminiscent of an impromptu Jazz performance with quick transition of styles. The tracks in, ‘Wondaland’ vary greatly in their flavour, notably “Hello Happy” with Yoo Hee Yeol, “Love and Peace” with Jeon In Kwon, and “Bucku Bucku” with EE, Dino J and BTS leader, (Rap Monster).
“Hip Hop can go across all different sounds. If Electronic is the thing, then Hip Hop can reside in it for a while, then when Rock becomes more popular, we can go there too.” Tiger JK insisted that MFBTY is not a Hip Hop group, rather an Underground K Pop group. “We all know that we are not at our prime, but there are some interesting things happening around us. When we rock gigs, we go crazy and when we were invited to the Dream Concert, we attended as their oldest performers. We are truly blessed!”
Donning the necklace given to him by his father, (he wears it every time he goes on stage) Tiger JK is getting ready to rise up once again.
Your last album, “The Cure”, had an emotionally heavy focus drawn from real life tragedies, but “Wondaland” seems to establish that you’ve moved on, especially with the first track, “Hello Happy.” Can you tell us about the transition from your last album to this one?
Tiger JK: Most of my songs are drawn from real life. Particularly “The Cure” was my mantra, it was our prayer for people who are suffering. As far as moving on, I don’t think I will ever be able to. I’m moving forward though because time doesn’t wait for me. “Hello Happy” was just the right theme for us. We wanted to focus on something positive and fun. It was like breaking the ice on a first date after a very long awkward silence on a rainy day by a car driving in a puddle and splashing water on us, now we’re laughing and hugging. It all sounds very Korean drama-esque!
Yoonmirae: We just wanted to do music that made us “Feel Ghood.” I guess you can say it was a self-fulfilling therapeutic decision.
Can you tell us about the origins of the concept of the MFBTY project, how it came about?
Tiger JK: The origin of the concept for MFBTY came from love. And it came about in the loveliest way. Our album “WondaLand” is a K-pop fantasy world where everybody loves Bizzy, Tiger, and Yoon Mi-rae.
Bizzy: People who are lost in their own lanes, they all deserve to be happy in this “WondaLand.” “My Fans Better Than Yours” is what MFBTY stands for.
Tiger JK: “We had over 30 plus songs. There were some definite bangers we didn’t put on this record because they didn’t fit. But you’re going to hear them soon.”
![[news] MFBTY to Perform With SeoTaiji At Pentaport Rock Festival](https://drunkentigerintl.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/mfbtytaiji.jpg?w=672&h=308&crop=1)
![[MV] Feel Ghood Music Secretly Drops Tiger JK’s new MV “I Know”](https://drunkentigerintl.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/11716085_10104093760762419_1711261399_n1.jpg?w=595&h=276&crop=1)
![[MV] TIGER JK Releases Single “Good To See You Again;” Explains All His Instagram Posts](https://drunkentigerintl.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/jkcloseuphd-nicetoseeyouagain1.jpg?w=672&h=372&crop=1)
![[news] TigerJK to Drop New Single “Nice To See You Again” On June 16th](https://drunkentigerintl.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/11537117_10206820114411485_642517756_n.jpg?w=540&h=372&crop=1)
DT MFBTY INTERNATIONAL 
