“…listeners expecting the singer to return to that brand of quirky synth-pop, or anything else else she previously explored, are in for a shock with the 25-year-old’s latest release, Generasian, a powerful, subversive reintroduction — and perhaps her truest introduction yet, to Kim.

Now doing her own thing as an independent artist, Lim Kim (Kim Ye-rim)’s new music is empowering as it is impactful, and it’s her explicit response to being placed in what she describes as a figurative box that she felt trapped in during the early days of her career.

[…] the impactful, genre-hopping Generasian in October. A declaration of her return (and a shift towards English-language music), it was a dramatic move, and one that was an expression of her identity as a Korean woman dealing with her place in the world at large. “I need to change up this game/ Don’t identify self in the male gaze/ I’m raising my voice to be heard/ Building my world,” she proclaims on “Sal-Ki.” “Decolonize from weakness/ Overpower their system,” she later says.

[…]
“Minjokyo,” which incorporates the Korean word usually used for ”nation” or ”people.” She’s inspired by Korean shamanism, which has traditionally incorporated singing and dancing into rituals, and sees herself as a modern day priestess of sorts. “I felt like Korean people have this energy with entertainment,” she says. “So I started thinking about making music about those spirits and rituals, and that was the basis of ‘Minjokyo.’ The reason it’s split into two tracks is that when you do that ritual you kind of enter that ritual and you start to sing and dance to go to the next phase, the new world, I guess.”

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