UPDATE: "Most-loved entertainer on the planet" Psy says he's sorry for rapping about killing Americans
Busan Haps, a magazine about what’s going in Busan, South Korea has translated a series of articles from Korean publications about Psy’s longstanding and outspoken opposition to U.S. military presence in his home country. The “Gangnam Style” singer, amasser of $8.1 million, and “most-loved entertainer on the planet” has performed at two anti-American rallies, including one in 2002 where he had his face painted gold and smashed a miniature U.S. tank on the ground in response to the recent death of two South Korean schoolgirls who were run over by an American tank.
While that’s not so bad, all things considered, Psy also performed a pretty fiery anti-America rap at a 2004 rally for a Korean missionary who was beheaded in Iraq. As part of a sort-of-supergroup performing a Korean rock song called “Dear American,” Psy rapped, “Kill those fucking Yankees who have been torturing Iraqi captives / Kill those fucking Yankees who ordered them to torture / Kill their daughters, mothers, daughters-in-law and fathers / Kill them all slowly and painfully.”
As one would expect, all of this hasn’t really gone over well with conservatives and pro-military Americans. Still, as Busan Haps notes, the protests were totally legal in South Korea, and what Psy did was well within his rights as an outraged citizen. His actions and feelings are also not uncommon: Protests are a frequent occurrence in South Korea, and after the death of the schoolgirls, a Gallup poll reported that 75 percent of Koreans in their twenties said they disliked Americans, along with 67 percent of people in their thirties and 50 percent of those in their forties.
Neither Psy nor his manager Scooter Braun have responded to the news yet, but the well-dressed singer is still scheduled to appear at the White House later this month.
UPDATE: Psy has issued an apology, saying he will “will forever be sorry for any pain I have caused anyone by those words.” He goes on to say, “While it's important we express our opinions, I deeply regret the inflammatory and inappropriate language I used to do so. In my music I try to give people a release, a reason to smile. I have learned that though music, our universal language we can all come together as a culture of humanity and I hope that you will accept my apology.”