It began around 1990, when Korean pop acts started using rap, and grew through an underground club scene in Seoul's Hongdae area. Rappers worked out ways of rhyming in Korean, whose grammar was long thought to make rhyme too difficult, and often mix in English phrases. The TV contest Show Me the Money, launched in 2012, brought it to a mass audience. It is separate from idol K-pop, though many idol songs include rap.
Artists it is known for: Drunken Tiger, Epik High, Zico, Jay Park.
- Family
- K-Pop
- On Spotify
- A current genre
- What it is
- A scene
- From
- South Korea, late 1980s to early 1990s
- Also called
- korean hip hop, k-hip hop, khh
- Trackify listeners who play it
- 3%
About 2,600 of 83,000 Trackify listeners with public profiles have k-rap among their top artists of the last four weeks. Rounded; updated 13 November 2026.
K-Rap artists
Jay Park
j-hope
Agust D
RM
DEAN
DPR IAN
BIBI
G-DRAGON
PSY
DPR LIVEThe k-rap artists most Trackify listeners have in their top fifty. Each opens on Spotify.
Sources
The definition is written for this site from open sources, and was checked against them on 13 November 2026.