Psy- Park Jae-San

Psy… Psy is a songwriter, vocalist and dancer following the release of his hit single “Gangnam style”,

a song that brought with it unique dance steps as if riding an invisible horse raising ones foot one after the other and throwing ropes like that of a cowboy, that song suddenly went viral for its catchy lines as ‘sexy lady’, ‘whop whopwhop’, ‘oopppangangnam style’.

 Park Jae-San popularly known as Psy was born in December1977 in South Korea majors in Genres as k-pop, pop, and hip house. Psy has been actively involved in show biz since 1999, which means he has been out there for over a decade and most of us had no clue he existed not until now after he released ‘Gangnam style’, a song about where he came from and which talks about the life of the people of GANGNAM, which I am sure most of us have no idea is a neighborhood in Seoul, South Korea.

I remember seeing Psy on popular TV shows firstly on Ellen DeGeneres show then The Golden Fisher, Saturday Night Live and The X-factor, i asked myself who this guy was? And just at that point, I fell in love with the music, dance and everything about Korea. I quickly jumped on google and searched ‘K-Pop’ I was elated to find others like Psy also with originality, singing in pure local Korean tongue with a touch of English. Wonder Girls, 2PM, Super Junior, 2ne1, After School, Kora, and oh yeah F(X) are few amongst those I fell in love with thanks to Psy, I now have over 50 k-pop songs in my music library.

Just last month, on the 23^rd of October 2012, Psy met the UN secretary General Ban Ki Moon at the United Nations Headquarters where Ban expressed his desires to work with Psy. He remarked that Psy has an unlimited global reach.

Psy has kept his remarkable style since 1999 even though he never had it this big until now but he didn’t change for no one nor succumbed to pressure of giving up as others might likely do. He kept his originality, not forgetting where he came from (Gangnam), persistence, hard work and style. Today, his hard work from over a decade has finally paid off.

  Apart from the fact that I had the gangnam style on repeat for over 6 hours after downloading it, i learnt the dance and I usually watch the video a times when ambored or generally down, k -Pop has also become a part of me.

I might not understand whatever it is that Psy is saying in that song but if there is any one message I got there, it would be that whatever we do, we have to keep it real, take pride in what we do, and remain focused, not forgetting where we are from because even though situations right now might not be as perfect as that of Psy, there is sure someone or a group of people out there that would like us for whom we are, what we do, and the unique we do it. 

 Develop your own ‘Gangnam style’ and be happy with what you do, only then would work become play.

 Thank you Psy, Thank you Korea.

WE LOVE THE GANGNAM STYLE.

By Ridwan Adeniyi- Youtuber