Korean pop artist Rydia trades verses with Dutch rapper on bilingual single 'Saranghaeyo'
Korean singer-songwriter Rydia, right, poses with Dutch rapper Jermaine Kool in central Seoul's Sinheung Market, Sunday. Courtesy of Justin Kyle
In Korea, a pop career is supposed to start in a trainee dormitory when one is a teenager. Rydia’s started in Rotterdam at 39.
The Seoul-born singer-songwriter, now 41 and six years into life in the Netherlands, put a music career off for most of her adult life before deciding it was never too late to reinvent herself. She officially launched as an independent artist on June 19. Four months and seven releases later, and she’s about to drop her most openly cross-cultural track yet.
Korean singer-songwriter Rydia / Courtesy of Rydia
“Saranghaeyo” (I Love You), out Oct. 23, pairs her with Dutch rapper Jermaine Kool in a back-and-forth where nobody meets anyone halfway on language. He raps in Dutch. She raps in Korean. The two converge on the chorus, an English-Korean hook that professes love for all the pretty girls, and then, to be fair, all the pretty boys.
The collaboration came together almost by accident. Rydia signed up for a K-pop and European crossover songwriting camp run by a Dutch studio, where the producer on her team learned she was Korean and mentioned a friend who loved Korea.
“It’s actually funny. I only met him in real life after the song was done,” she said of Kool. The producer sent over a track already in progress, Kool’s Dutch verse included, and she loved it.
Kool’s verse is a pileup of Korean pop culture references run through Dutch slang. Hongdae, Gangnam, a boat to Jeju, Korean Air and even the reunion of girl group I.O.I all get a mention.
Keeping his verse in Dutch suited her. “If I work internationally, of course we should have some English in there,” she said. “But I want our native languages to be there, to show cross-cultural promotion.”
Rydia’s verse flips the gaze. She leans on the sing-song rhythms of Korean schoolyard wordplay, casting herself as royalty holding court while the boys line up for her attention. It’s playful and fully aware of the K-pop tropes it’s toying with.
“Both,” she said when asked whether she wrote it for Korean or Dutch listeners. Aware that so many people learn Korean through K-pop, she kept the lyrics simple enough to sing along to.
Korean singer-songwriter Rydia / Courtesy of Rydia
She sums up her musical identity in one line: made in Korea, reborn in Europe. She describes her sound as cinematic alternative pop with K-pop influences, built around identity, vulnerability, desire and transformation.
Music was never new to her. She’s classically trained on flute and piano, and years ago, she came close to signing with a label in Korea. She walked away over what it asked of her.
“The issue was they wanted me to get plastic surgery, or it was very set in what the label wants you to be,” she said. “It wasn’t really free in what I wanted to express. So I thought, OK, this is not right for me.”
For years after that, music meant karaoke and the occasional open mic. At 39, she decided to make it her life.
“A lot of people go hard in their 20s, and if it doesn’t work out, they settle for something else,” she said. “I’m doing the opposite. It’s never too late to begin again.”
The music video, set to shoot the day after the single drops, takes her back to her school days. The set is a studio built as a replica of Korean middle and high school classrooms, with rented uniforms and a plot that pits Rydia against Kool in a race for class president.
“It’s also very nostalgic because I’m 41,” she said. “It’s like walking down memory lane again, but this time with people that I like and love.”
Instead of hiring models, she cast friends and family members, gathering a mix of nationalities rarely seen in a Korean classroom. “I love to break stereotypes and borders,” she said. “I also didn’t want just cookie-cutter models, because I personally find it a little boring.”
Kool is part of that idea. Foreigners can come to Korea as university exchange students, she pointed out, but few experience being a teenager here.
“I love it here,” Kool said. “The people are amazing. They’re so welcoming to me.”
“It’s a celebration of culture,” Rydia added.
Korean singer-songwriter Rydia / Courtesy of Rydia
For Rydia, the question of whether 39 was too late is settled.
“I decided that this is literally what I want to do for the rest of my life,” she said, “whether it be me as an artist or as a producer or as a marketing person. I don’t care.”
“Saranghaeyo” is out on Spotify.
Visit linktr.ee/rydia0722 for more information, or follow @jermainekool_ on Instagram.
Justin Kyle is a writer, photographer, and content creator based in Seoul who covers Korean cinema, culture and travel. His YouTube channel, The Seoul Scene, provides travel guides for South Korea.