The High is Epik

When it comes to Korean music, I've always had a preference for their raps. And the one band who really shaped that preference of mine, was Epik High. I first got to know their music when they joined YG entertainment back in the day and released '99'. I was in love with mainly two songs from that album - 'New Beautiful' and 'Don't Hate Me'. 'New Beautiful' was an anthem for me at that point in time because I was struggling a lot with my self-image and that song really helped me in feeling better about myself. 

But it was their subsequent albums, 'Shoebox', 'We've Done Something Wonderful', and 'Sleepless in ___", which solidified me as a fan. 'We've Done Something Wonderful' in particular hit me in the feels real hard when I first heard it. The raps were mostly on the emotional side, and they inspired me to write even more. 

Throughout the years since I first discovered them, I knew I wanted to catch them live at least once. It was on my bucket list. But I knew it was near impossible, they only ever performed in Korea and America. Not once in 6 years did we ever hear news of them having the possibility of coming to Singapore to perform. That was, until this year. A few months back, a friend of mine shared with me a post by Tablo, announcing their concert in Singapore. So you can imagine how happy I was to hear it. 

I'll skip the unnecessary details, but long story short, on the day of my shoot with Megan, we both decided to go for the concert together. And Epik High was hands down the best performers I'd ever watched live. The energy, the interactions, the live rapping. They were simply the best. I never thought I'd get to hear Tablo's machine gun rapping in real life, and my ears were blessed. I enjoyed myself much more than I even imagined. 

Megan and I thought it'd be packed and because our queue numbers were in the 900s, we thought we wouldn't be near enough. But we were wrong. The audience was so chill, you wouldn't think they were here to watch a Korean concert. Most K-pop concerts are usually filled with screaming teenage girls who are pushing and shoving. But the audience this time was mature, and since there was a makeshift "bar" at the side selling drinks, a lot of them were actually hanging at the back with those drinks. No one was trying to squeeze to the front or anything. Just a bunch of few hundred people here to enjoy Epik High's performance. It was the most enjoyable concert I had ever attended, honestly. A lot of my favourite songs were sung, so you can imagine how happy I was. I was just a little bummed that they didn't sing a few more slow songs. 

But overall, it was the greatest concert ever. Thank you Epik High. It was worth burning a hole in my pockets for this.