The Melancholic Paradise of BLOO

The South Korean rapper opens up about his newfound viral fame with ‘Downtown Baby,’ the burden of mainstream success and perfecting the art of being true to himself

- Riddhi Chakraborty

There was a time when Daniel or Hyunwoong Kim considered himself “the most underrated rapper in Korea.” Known better by the mononym BLOO, the 25-year-old made a name for himself in the Korean underground hip-hop scene with music that dances around poetic self-destruction, loneliness and lovelorn woes. He makes for a dark, broody and tragic figure that’s more rockstar than rapper and you’d be hard pressed to find a music video where he hasn’t got a cigarette dangling from his lips or a bottle of alcohol clutched in his fist. However the magnetism of the entire picture is undeniable. “Obviously, I’m trying to write songs after sad incidents but I guess that’s what I tend to do… Maybe I like that feeling of feeling,” he confesses when we connect for a conversation about his artistry.

That ‘feeling of feeling’ is probably the best way to describe BLOO’s work. I’ve often felt that putting on one of his records is like floating on your back in a pool of emotion with your eyes closed, an escape without an agenda. You don’t have to relate to his experiences to immerse yourself in the music–in BLOO’s world there is no search for a lesson, no breakdown of theories; its about letting it take you on a journey without pushing a specific message. “I don’t really want them to learn about something,” he says when I ask about what he wants to impart to the world. “I just want them to enjoy and feel it whichever way they want to feel it.” I haven’t ever gotten an answer quite like this from an artist before and suddenly what he describes as ‘that feeling of feeling’ is crystal clear.