Jessica Jung and Amber Liu’s Unexpected Collaboration
In “Get It? Got It? Good” two outcasts from K-Pop come together to find common ground in new beginnings.
By my rough estimation, two seismic events marked the end of K-Pop’s second generation. The first occurred in 2014 when Jessica Jung alleged in a statement that she was forced out of Girls Generation (SNSD), one the most popular and prolific girl groups in history. The second breaking point was f(x)’s final album “4 Walls”, an album that pushed the group’s artistry far outside the scope of a normal K-Pop group. Nearly a decade later, the impact of “4 Walls” is still reverberating in groups like NewJeans (who, not coincidentally, are managed by the brain of “4 Walls”, Min Heejin).
But perhaps these two events, unrelated as they were at the time, were kismet. In late November, Jessica Jung made her long-awaited return to K-Pop with the release of “BEEP BEEP”, her first mini-album in six years. The most notable part of Jung’s comeback though was the single “Get It? Got It? Good” because it features Amber Liu, the androgynous rapper from f(x).
In the years since leaving K-Pop both women have evaluated their time in the industry through different lenses. Liu has been the most critical voice of the industry, once participating in a “dark side of K-Pop” interview after the suicide of f(x) member Sulli. Liu categorized her time in K-Pop as “lonely” and remembered the members “going on fumes” due to the heavy promotional schedule. Jung has chosen to be more discreet in her criticism. In interviews, she is steely when asked about K-Pop’s issues, but in her novels “Shine” and “Bright” she writes scathingly about an industry that encourages unhealthy eating habits or that prioritizes protecting an idol’s image over their mental health .
Liu and Jung knew each other for years: Both participated in SMTown concerts, company wide concerts billed as a family affair, and Jung’s younger sister Krystal was the youngest member (maknae) of f(x). Marketing for f(x) often referred to the group as the “weird little sister” of SNSD.
But still, their collaboration was a surprise for many fans, including myself. Many fans had no idea the women stayed in touch. “Funny,” one viewer on YouTube wrote, “how some friendships last longer than the ones you expect.”
Released in the summer of 2015 as an extension of the house music scene trending in Europe, “4 Walls” was a major departure for the group. It was their first record without member Sulli, and their most mature, innovative work in their discography. Whenever I think of pointing new K-Pop fans to an album that might shake their expectations of the genre, I recommend they listen to “Rude Love” or the title track. Nearly a decade later, only NewJeans’ sampling of Jersey Club music with “Attention” can compare to how fresh “4 Walls” sounded when it was released.
But f(x) would enter into a hiatus following the album’s release, crippling their growth and legacy. The members’ contracts ended over the next few years as each opted to focus on solo careers. SM Entertainment, the company that formed f(x), chose to never formally dissolve the group – but with no release in nearly a decade and no members signed to the company, there is little incentive for the company to look back.
K-Pop was beginning to shift in new ways by 2016, too: Boy groups found large fandoms outside of Asia, particularly SM’s blockbuster boy group EXO and BTS, a seven-member boy group from the small agency Big HIt. That year, too, NCT debuted which proved to be a landmark business decision for SM. Lee Soo-man, the company’s founder, long believed that great value could be found in a rotating group concept and for the past seven years, SM has placed the majority of its focus on building a universe around NCT.
In the year following f(x)’s hiatus and the restructuring of Girls Generation, YG Entertainment, a rival of SM’s, struck gold when BLACKPINK became a worldwide sensation. BLACKPINK took the edginess and swagger of YG’s senior group 2NE1 and applied it with a Western spin leading them to massive success.
In the following years, the members of f(x) and Jung worked to carve their own paths. Krystal Jung focused on modeling. Luna headed to Broadway to open “K-POP”, a musical that focused on Asian American stories, which unfortunately closed weeks after it’s opening. Liu and Victoria Song continued to invest in their solo music careers to varying degrees of success.
Last year in an interview with Time Magazine, Luna recalled how demoralizing her time in f(x) was: “When I was working in the K-pop world, I was always the person who was the worst. I was the ugliest. I was someone who, however much I tried, I always felt so unlucky in everything because that’s how I was conditioned to think. It really got to the point where I was thinking, if I’m putting in all this work, and this is what I’m getting, what have I actually achieved in my life?”
Maybe it’s a form of rebellion or perhaps the strategy was to reclaim their power but whatever the goal was, Jung and LIu’s collaboration still brought tears to my eyes as I watched the video. There was an unexpected catharsis found in seeing two women who were nearly ruined by the industry find strength in one another.
Yet what I was most struck by was the wink Jung and Liu gave to their queer fans in the music video, both in the visuals and in the lyrics. (Both women have a large fandom of women and genderqueer individuals, although neither woman has said they are queer.) “My queendom never needed a king,” they sing in one of my favorite lines from the bridge and as they dance together, it’s hard to not see a form of queerness represented in the music even if it’s one that fans will simply see themselves in.
But perhaps, Jung and Liu share more in common than I realized. Both women moved from California to Korea at a young age to train at an agency with little idea of how much they would sacrifice. In Jung’s book “Bright”, she recalled (through her character Rachel’s narrative) how much she had given to the group and a company only to have it all disappear. “Of course, it was one of the darkest periods of my life,” Jung told The Daily Ketchup Podcast in a rare statement about that time in 2014. Liu, who is Tawainese American, spoke little Korean and often struggled in interviews to express herself. She was also, maybe, a little too candid for her own good.
When the hosts of The Daily Ketchup asked Jung how she dealt with being Korean American and the strange sense of “foreignness” Korean Ameircans feel in both countries, Jung stared blankly at them. She responded almost as if the question was rhetorical, stating flatly, “You need to accept the fact that you don’t belong anywhere.”
Jung doesn’t belong anywhere in music either. On “BEEP BEEP”, she mostly sings in English even though the album is promoted and packaged as a K-Pop album. Jung didn’t promote on any Korean variety shows, and instead only participated in a small sampling of interviews, mostly in China. A tour, she says, will occur next year, which I hope will extend to North America. (Liu is embarking on her own North American tour next week) Perhaps, then, Jung and Liu’s space is something of their own. It’s the kind of place that is forged from a sense of survival, and perhaps, will be a way forward for the next generation of K-Pop idols who leave the industry disillusioned and ready to find a new reality.
