So RIIZE is going to headline RAPBEAT alongside artists like Zico, Jay Park & Lil Moshpit, and KC. RAPBEAT is basically the biggest hip hop festival in Korea. It’s been running for over a decade, and in 2024 it even pulled a crowd of around 100k, bringing in legends like Nas and all the other biggest hip hop artists in Korea.
A few weeks ago, the second headliner for Day 1 was still listed as “??????”, so hip hop fans were constantly speculating about who it might be. A lot of people were hoping it would end up being Zico with FANXYCHILD (Dean, Crush, Penomeco).
Then the mystery name was finally revealed today and… it turned out to be RIIZE. People completely lost it and started trashing the organizers for inviting them. A lot of the complaints were basically: why is an idol group headlining a hip hop festival? And why RIIZE of all groups when they’re not even a hip hop group? Mind you, there’s veryyyy little overlap between idol fans and hip hop fans in SK, so I completely understand their reactions.
I had to do a double take when I saw the poster. Seeing RIIZE’s name above artists like Dynamic Duo, BewhY, pH-1 & lilboi, CJAMM, and Kid Milli is honestly kind of hilarious. There are some idols and ex-idols in the entire lineup like Zico and Jay Park, but these two are some of the biggest names in Korean Hip Hop scene. Bobby, Joohoney, and LNGSHOT are also invited but they’re not headliners.
At this point the whole situation is so ridiculous that I’m just finding it funny. My guess is that SM was probably the one that approached RAPBEAT about letting RIIZE headline, because it’s hard to imagine the festival organizers deciding on their own to put RIIZE in that spot. Even the Korean Briize are confused by this news 😂
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