Juju B. Goode Curates K-Oldies and Goodies on “GOODE radio”
Live from LA’s Koreatown, Juju B. Goode and Saké by the Water present a collage of soul, jazz and overlooked Korean tunes.
Perhaps a surprising effect of the globalization of K-Pop is how little work has been done to track the history of the genre. What started as an act of political defiance pioneered by Seo Tajij and Boys against conservative values and ambitions for the youth has now morphed into a worldwide sensation. But how we got to this point, as well as the stories of the trailblazers who each moved the needle, has largely been overlooked.
Yet one musician who readily engages with the history of Korean music is Los Angeles-based singer-songwriter Juju B. Goode. His debut album “Smile! You’re On Camera” is similar to a music theory thesis project that grounds Korean music in a foundation of rock, folk, and off-kilter pop. But Juju has never been content to only be a musician: Recently he started his own record label, Both Brain Records and signed his first artist. This week, Juju launched his first project under the label, “GOODE Radio”, a weekly show broadcasting live from LA’s Koreatown and streamed on YouTube. Done in collaboration with recording artist Saké by the Water, “GOODE radio” is curated by both artists and features music that inspired “Smile”.
“This album is my own take on K-Pop because to me, K-Pop has always been a salad bowl of all this different type of music,” Juju told me in an interview in August as he was completing “Smile”. “I wanted to do something that I haven’t done before. I wanted to capture all of the music I grew up listening to, and engage that in my musical creation.”
Since we met, Juju has taken an archival approach to presenting the “k-oldies” that he grew up listening to. You can hear this method in tracks like “Cameo”, which is reminiscent of the reggae-pop music with heartbroken lyrics that floated around Korea in the early 90s. (For reference, you might recognize this sound in songs like DEUX’s “In Summer”.) “I found the juxtaposition in these songs from the 90s so addicting and gratifying that I had to make one for myself,” he said recently.
But “GOODE radio” is Juju’s most direct line to championing the foundation of Korean pop. On the first broadcast, Juju opened with Light and Salt’s “Fairy of Shampoo”, a song that has become more widely known thanks to TOMORROW X TOGETHER’s cover, before bridging into his own homage with “Ending Fairy”. Throughout the show, Juju mixed in his own music (“Salsa On A Highway”, the unreleased demo “LA”). But the purpose of “GOODE radio” is to turn listeners on to what a diverse and often funky history Korean music has to offer: PPCX’s experimental “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You”, Super Junior’s debut track “Twins (Knock Out)”, and Kim Gun Mo’s “To You” all find new life in this set. Although the music isn’t confined to Korea: incorporated throughout, too, are flourishes of jazz (Sivuca’s “Ain’t No Sunshine”) and soul (Sharon Jones & the Dap Kings “This Land is Your Land”).
“GOOD radio” makes for a thrilling, killer listen thanks to the eclectic mix of music and it’s a broadcast that deserves to find it’s audience. As K-Pop expands its influence, fans owe it to themselves to learn about Korea's long, fascinating history in music. For that reason, “GOODE radio” is a great place to start.
