CNN to Air Interview With Epik High

By Cathy Rose A. Garcia

Staff Reporter

As K-pop mania spreads throughout Asia, CNN Talk Asia is putting the spotlight on Korean hip-hop by interviewing popular group Epik High.

Epik High will be featured on CNN Talk Asia, a 30-minute documentary and interview show that will be aired Wednesday evening. Epik High, one of the groups credited with helping popularize hip-hop music in Korea, is the first Korean band to be invited on the international show. High-profile Korean figures such as footballer Park Ji-Sung, singer Rain and actor Lee Byung-hun have been featured in the past.

Anjali Rao, the host of the program, met with Epik High members Tablo and Mithra Jin in Seoul, while they were recording their latest album ``Epilogue.'' The interview covered different topics, including government censorship and how they're coping with the absence of DJ Tukutz, who is serving in the military.

Tablo, the Stanford-educated rapper whose music and lyrics have sometimes run into trouble with government censors, revealed that he doesn't mind censorship.

``To me, I'm just writing these lyrics on a piece of paper. It's just natural to me. When the government censors me or when they put a comment on it, it only makes me more special. So I am very grateful,'' he said during the CNN interview, as quoted in a press release.

Tablo also opened up about Epik High's struggles, before hitting it big on the Korean pop scene.

``I got screwed over by somebody that I trusted. He ran off with our studio recording money after we recorded it. So the debt fell on me. … I struggled for about two years to get my album out so that I could have some company pay for the cost of that album. … Those two years were like hell,'' he said.

The 30-year-old singer and songwriter also openly discussed his marriage to actress Kang Hye-jung and his soon-to-be-born child. ``For some reason, when I first met her, she didn't appeal to me like a celebrity; I didn't look at her and think she's an actress. She just came into my heart as a very good person," Tablo said.

He added that he wants his baby to grow up loving hip-hop music as much as he does. ``This is what I do and I want my kid to love what I do. I think that's a part of him or her loving me. Of course, I'm gonna make sure that he or she listens to hip-hop but at the same time I just want all the arts to be loved by my child," he said.

Epik High received the MIAK Golden Disk Award for Best Korean Hip-Hop/ Rap Artist in 2009. The group's latest album ``Epilogue'' became the most successful album by a Korean artist. After it was released on March 9, the album topped the iTunes Hip-Hop/Rap Album sales chart in the U.S. and New Zealand. It also ranked highly in the iTunes sales charts in Australia, Canada and Japan.

Visit CNN Talk Asia Web site https://edition.cnn.com/ASIA/talkasia/ for more information.