Missy Elliott + G-Dragon: Niliria
Missy Elliott’s KCON debut, Wild Ones’ sporty music video and more in our look at the songs we tweeted this week
There’s more to Seoul than “Gangnam Style.” While Justin Timberlake pleased Brooklyn at the VMAs, his Korean counterpart G-Dragon (who rose to fame through his pop band Big Bang and whose solo career has been equally influential) was rapping a duet with Missy Elliott at LA’s annual KPOP convention. While we were happily stunned to see Elliott—who’s kept a pretty low profile these last few years—we were even more impressed by how smoothly the two cultures fused together for the premiere of their collaboration, called “Niliria.” The title references a type of traditional Korean folk song, which you can briefly hear in the first few seconds of the video; G-Dragon’s opening line translates to “Proud Korea” and he later sums up this powerful moment: “international diplomacy through a rap.” The song will be on G-Dragon’s second full-length album, Coup d’État, out 2 September 2013, which also features a song with Diplo.
