McClendon 1

International communication is a rapidly changing subject which encompasses many

elements such as media, people and cultural ideology. In an increasingly globalized environment,
people in different locations and among various backgrounds are able to connect and
communicate on a deeper level in both positive and negative ways. Within such a complicated
system, one can break down the implications of international communication into a study of one
media or another. Music is an interesting medium to analyze in this light because it demonstrates
how an arguably ancient form of media has adapted to changes in technology and
communication around the globe. This particular paper will focus on modern popular music in
South Korea and Nigeria. These countries and their cultures vary in many respects, and this
analysis will show how the common element of music and its use of other media continues to
develop in different cultural contexts.
South Korea, a part of the Korean Peninsula, is located in East Asia and is bordered to the
north by North Korea, to the east and west by the Sea of Japan and the Yellow Sea, respectively,
and to the south by the Korean Strait. Nigeria is located in West Africa and is bordered by Benin
to the west, Niger and Chad to the north, Cameroon to the west and the Atlantic Sea to the south.
According to The World Factbook on the CIAs website, South Korea and Nigeria differ greatly
in terms of size and population. South Korea covers a total of 99,720 sq km sq miles and is home
to 49,039,986 people, placing it in a more medium position in terms of population in Asia.
Nigeria on the other hand is the most populous country in Africa, with a population of
177,155,754 people living across 923,768 sq km. In South Korea, the official language is
Korean, but English is also taught in school. The official language of Nigeria is English, but
being home to over 250 different ethnic groups, there are over 500 languages spoken in the
country. Education wise, the average expected education for South Koreans is 17 years, with a

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97.9% literacy rate. Nigerians have less extensive schooling, with an average of about 9 years of
education and a 61.3% literacy rate. Korea is a relatively secular nation, with 43% of the
population identifying with no religion. The most popular religion is Christianity at 31.6%.
Nigeria is comparatively more religious with 50% of the population identifying as Muslim and
40% identifying as Christian (CIA.gov). As demonstrated by these statistics, these countries have
developed very differently in many ways.
Nigeria and South Korea have somewhat similar political and economic bases in the
sense that both countries have republic style governments and rely heavily on export goods. The
World Factbook states that some of South Koreas industries include electronics and
telecommunications. South Korean emphasis on technology has made it an economic
powerhouse, resulting in a national GDP of $1.198 trillion in 2013. Although Nigerias economy
is significantly smaller than South Koreas, it boasts the largest economy in Africa at an
estimated 2013 GDP of $502 billion. Petroleum is the largest contributor to the economy, but
also one of the biggest issues in the country. According to Ogaga Oyukade, from 2001-2006,
Nigerian oil exports made $20 billion, but most people in Nigeria survive on less than $2 a day
(87). In addition to the lack of economic benefits to average Nigerians, Okuyade notes the vast
environmental costs of this industry.
In order to more easily manage the scale of information, this paper will focus on the
popular music genres of K-pop and Afrobeat/Afropop. According to the article What is the K in
K-pop? the genre of K-pop is thought to have made its official global debut in 1992 with the
hip-hop inspired sound of Seo Taiji and the Boys (Lie 5), but has been developing since the time
of Japanese occupation during the first half of the 20th century (Lie 2). Since that time, Korean
popular music has adapted elements from many other nations, including Japan and the United

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States. Nigerian popular music emerged in the form of Afrobeat, a term which was coined by the
genres creator Fela Kuti in 1968 (Stewart 103). According to the article Make It Funky, this
genre of music was in development about 10 years before it was actually named, after Kuti had
studied jazz music in London in the 1960s and before he made it to America where he learned
about funk in the 1970s (Stewart 102). Today, both of these music industries have grown to have
an international presence. For example, K-pop artist Psys 2012 hit song Gangnam Style has
garnered over 2 billion YouTube views to date, making it the most viewed YouTube video of all
time. Even two years later, the video gains almost 3 million views per day (McIntyre). Although
K-pop arguably has more international clout than Afrobeat, Nigerian music is on its way to
global recognition as well. In 2011, Afrobeat superstar DBanj signed a landmark international
contract with Kanye Wests G.O.O.D. Music. In an interview with RapFix Live, the Nigerian
artist stated the deal would help strengthen relations between Africans in his homeland and
African-Americans here in the United States. Kanye is the first person to take a talent from
Africa that has never been here. I believe that that bridge has been broken for a long time
(Markman). As each of these genres become more globally recognized, their distribution
methods are evolving.
Both K-pop and Afrobeat use a combination of methods to distribute music domestically
and internationally. According to Economist.com, although K-pop artists can easily sell CDs and
tickets in other countries, the domestic South Korean music industry operates mostly on digital
subscription services. While these services are kept at a low price in order to curb piracy, they
can also hurt the profits of the artists. In Nigeria, piracy is also an issue. According to Digital
Music, the African Way, 70 percent of the African music business consists of local repertoire,
likely due to less Internet accessibility (Pfanner). Within these systems, Pfanner states that street

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vendors can easily peddle music illegally. However, he acknowledges the recent rise of
companies like the Nigerian music distributor iRoking, which has emerged as a sort of digital
record label where African artists can upload their music to the Internet.
In both of these instances, music can be seen as a sort of international communication and
dialogue in itself. This is true in the sense that not only have both genres drawn from other
cultures, but they have given back as well. For example, Lie gives a historical account of how
South Korean popular music began to draw on influences outside of cultural tradition from Japan
during the Japanese occupation of Korea. As time went on and South Korea became independent
of Japan, its popular culture drew from Western culture as well (2). When K-pop artists SeoTaiji
and the Boys incorporated hip-hop influences into their music, they showed how another genre
of music, one with already diverse influences at that, could be adapted within another cultural
context. More recently, the numerous remakes and adaptations of Psys Gangnam Style show
the exchange of information between countries through popular media. Each new interpretation
and reproduction of the video says something about the person who made it using Psys already
known format. Fela Kutis development of Afrobeat itself demonstrates the influence and
evolution that African music has experienced and had on other genres. The article Is Afrobeat
the Next Big Sound in Pop? acknowledges that although Fela was influenced by jazz and funk
artists of the 1970s, they were also influenced by African elements and instruments. For
example, Stewart states of Afrobeat that While musical textures featuring interlocking parts are
central to much African music, in Felas funk grooves, the two distinctive guitar parts--rhythm
and single-note or tenor--are strongly reminiscent of [James] Browns technique (111). Genres
such as jazz and funk arguably have strong roots in African music, as they are largely considered
African-American forms of music. Furthermore, the article takes note of hip-hop as an artform

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that is derivative of African rhythmic and griot tradition (Boyd). K-pop and Afrobeat have an
interesting relationship in this respect, as some of their influences are similar if not the same. The
dialogue exists in how they interpret, adapt and reproduce those influences into different forms
of cultural expression. The situations above help to demonstrate how free flow of information
can be used between nations and regions in a type of marketplace of ideas, but it is important not
to look at the issue in black and white.
Another helpful way to look at music in these instances is in its relation to the economic
and political landscape of each country. Both K-pop and Afrobeat engage these spheres in
numerous instances, but due to the cultural function of the music, this phenomenon is handled
differently between the countries. In the case of South Korea the government often restricts Kpop based on its own interests. In the article Mapping K-pop Past and Present, it is stated that
Seo Taiji was censored multiple times in the 1990s because the content of his songs and his
image were seen as too subversive for South Korean popular culture (Howard 7). This type of
censorship and careful monitoring still exists today, and some would argue that K-pop is
produced in a pattern with South Korean export products, such as Samsung of HyundaiYet as
a matter of traditional culture, there is almost nothing Korean about K-pop (Lie 9). This
argument stresses the viewpoint that the South Korean government has made K-pop into a
commodity at the expense of its value as a cultural product. In this respect, K-pop mirrors the
issue of the flow of information. The quality of K-pop could suffer if artists are discouraged by
the fact that they feel they have no creative license to express themselves, and South Korean
audiences could be alienated by highly edited content. Although K-pop is branded as Korean, it
may in many ways be a reflection of the highly commoditized model of pop that is produced in
the Western world. While gaining international acclaim through K-pop has had positive effects

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for South Korea, the industry must find a balance between making K-pop profitable without
misrepresenting South Korean culture. Nigerian Afrobeats response to the Niger Delta Question
is one example of contraflow, in that Nigerian musicians use the medium to express local
frustration and bring awareness to the issue of oil exploitation in the Niger Delta. The article
Rethinking Militancy and Environmental Justice acknowledges the power of Nigerian
Afrobeat artists such as Timaya and the Lover Boys who have criticized the exploitation of the
Niger Delta with the statement that as artists, they owe a duty to their people to bring to the
limelight the burden of being a minority person (Okuyade 88). Social action in this way
subverts oppression within a culture while simultaneously using many of the cultures elements.
Although Afrobeat is more local and typically do not have the financial backing that K-pop does,
the creative process of the Nigerian artists makes the message translatable to those who are a part
of the culture as well as those in proximity. Furthermore, if Afrobeat musicians like Timaya or
the Lover Boys successfully break out on a larger regional or international scale, they can
transmit the message to all the people within that system, bringing further awareness to the plight
of people who otherwise might have no voice.
Finally, music should not only be looked at in terms of how it facilitates culture, but also
how it is facilitated through other media. Both K-pop and Nigeria have developed through
certain types of media. Between the 1960s and 1980s, television as well as portable media such
as Walkmans and karaoke machines introduced South Korea to more Western and Japanese
themes and elements musically (Lie 5). Afrobeat has also historically been facilitated and
changed through its use of international communication in the form of Fela Kutis travels around
the world. As he heard different sounds that he liked, he incorporated these into his music,
creating a new hybrid of music with a Nigerian background. Today, forms of media such as the

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Internet have become crucial to the global distribution of music. According to Lie, due to the
emergence of mp3 in 1996 and YouTube in 2005, recorded music became not only unmoored
from physical manifestations as LPs or CDs to be instantaneously downloaded around the world
but it also became part and parcel of visual culture (6). This line of thinking can arguably be
extended to the global realm of popular music rather than just in terms of K-pop. While the
limited accessibility of the Internet in Nigeria likely prevents the music industry from utilizing
the distribution method as much as other countries such as South Korea, iRoking and other
online distribution sites such as the Samsung/Universal project The Kleek (Pfanner) are trying to
change this in order to bring all African music to a larger audience. The K-pop industry has
clearly embraced Internet sites such as YouTube as a way to export the product of music.
These fundamental changes within the music industry reflect the discussion of how
exactly new technologies affect people and prompts the discussion of whether they really makes
things better, or if this thought is just Western bias. In this case, the answer is complicated.
While globalization in some respects perpetuates dominant ideals and homogenizes cultures,
Okuyade notes that in many cases The emergence and/or liberalization of media such as TV and
the Internet have eased the production of cultural expressions by young people, making them
become increasingly global" (84). Music is just one form of media which follows this model, but
it is special in the sense that it can speak to people across different cultures and generations to
not only spread specific messages, but transmit elements of culture as well.

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Works Cited
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ProQuest. Web. 17 Nov. 2014
<http://search.proquest.com/docview/1562782982?accountid=14698>.
Markman, Rob. "Kanye West's Label Goes International With D'Banj." MTV News.
MTV, 30 June 2011. Web. 22 Nov. 2014.
McIntyre, Hugh. "At 2 Billion Views, 'Gangnam Style' Has Made Psy A Very Rich
Man." Forbes. Forbes Magazine, 16 June 2014. Web. 22 Nov. 2014.
Okuyade, Ogaga. "Rethinking Militancy and Environmental Justice: The Politics of Oil
and Violence in Nigerian Popular Music." Africa Today 58.1 (2011): 79-101. Project
MUSE. Web. 17 Nov. 2014.
Howard, Keith. "Mapping K-Pop Past and Present: Shifting the Modes of Exchange."
Korea Observer 45.3 (2014): 389-414. ProQuest. Web. 20 Nov. 2014.
Lie, John. "What is the K in K-Pop? South Korean Popular Music, the Culture Industry,
and National Identity." Korea Observer 43.3 (2012): 339-63. ProQuest. Web. 14 Nov.
2014.
Pfanner, Eric. "Digital Music, the African Way." The New York Times. The New York
Times, 24 Mar. 2013. Web. 17 Nov. 2014.
Stewart, Alexander. "Make It Funky: Fela Kuti, James Brown and the Invention of
Afrobeat." American Studies 52.4 (2013): 99-118. Project MUSE. Web. 14 Nov. 2014.
"Top of the K-pops." The Economist. The Economist Newspaper, 18 Aug. 2012. Web. 20
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"The World Factbook." Central Intelligence Agency. Central Intelligence Agency, n.d.
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