Asian Junkie Asian pop. Without discretion.
ChoCo1 X ChoCo2 are a pre-debut unit under ChoCo Entertainment, which is Cho PD‘s latest entertainment venture. They recently released a single called “GIMME“, and no sooner than it was uploaded was it hit by controversy.
After the repetitive intro/chorus ends, the listener is greeted with ChoCo1 member Yechan rapping the first verse, and the very first line 18 seconds in includes the line that’s allegedly “yeah, all my neighbors wanna know“.
But don’t let the official lyrics and subtitles gaslight you into denying what you heard. Listening to it carefully and slowed down, there’s just no trace of the backend of “neighbors” in there, or really anything other than the n-word. That’s just the reality of what he ended up saying, intent or not.
The overly generous interpretation here is that he made a horrible mispronunciation of the word and the company didn’t care to correct it or was negligent enough that they didn’t pick it up. The more likely reality? It was said that way on purpose, given cover from the company through the official lyrics, and will be used as something akin to noise marketing for a group that I’m not sure anybody would’ve known made a release otherwise. ChoCo Entertainment could now either say nothing about it and try to let the official lyrics do the talking, or release a clarification/apology for the sake of generating plausible deniability. Either way, there’s nothing positive to say about this.
Given that the group’s CEO is Cho PD, I don’t think there’s any reason to not assume the worst and/or most cynical intent. Block B filed a lawsuit against him and eventually had to get out from under him to fulfill their potential, and his dealings with Topp Dogg got him convicted of fraud. This entire project was treated with skepticism by those who knew beforehand, and the most recent way they’re finding their way into headlines certainly isn’t going to disabuse anybody of continuing to treat them that way.
