G-Dragon's Camp Says K-Pop Star Wasn't Wearing Blackface

[benihime99.livejournal.com]

Says Trayvon Martin-like Instagram photo was both "HUGE misunderstanding" and reference to cover art from Big Bang mastermind's next solo effort



An Instagram photo of South Korean pop idol G-Dragon wearing what appears to be a hoodie and dark coloring over his skin was not meant as a comment on race or politics, according to a rep for the Big Bang leader.

"GD was simply wearing different facepaint colors and this is a HUGE misunderstanding," the spokesperson said in an email to SPIN. "The facepaint is only a color variation for his album cover which includes black, white, and red. It is in no way meant to be a political or racial statement."

The rep further clarified, "It’s being derived by a simple photo shoot where GD was using different facepaint colors for his upcoming album."

G-Dragon's spokesperson also said SPIN's article reporting on the image "is completely wrong and taken out of context."

The response comes after we reported on the photo, noting its resemblance to an iconic image of slain Florida youth Trayvon Martin and pointing out that it had drawn criticism online. Though the singer's Instagram account made no mention of Martin, the image bears an eerie similiarity to a meme that had Frank Ocean, Diddy, the-Dream, and others posting photos of themselves in a hoodie last year. (Rap-Up has a good collection of these Martin-inspired images.) Online forums Oh No They Didn't! and One Asian World previously pointed out an alleged connection to the Martin tributes.

G-Dragon is set to appear at KCON 2013, a K-pop convention in Los Angeles on August 24 and 25, and he is readying a new solo album. G-Dragon's 2012 "Crayon" was SPIN's No. 1 K-pop song of the year. His group Big Bang's "Bad Boy" was one of SPIN's 21 Greatest K-Pop Songs of All Time. Check out our coverage of a Big Bang concert in New Jersey here.

The original Instagram photo is below:

That's some Justin Bieber level of PR...

EDIT:
the official omona twitter has shared our open letter with authors from spin and the la times who wrote articles about GD.

Spin

Comments

[luvey.livejournal.com]

i am afraid it is going to get lost in the comments. would it be out of Omona's rules (although you are the rule maker lol) to make a separate post to alert peeps to tweet it to them.

[shanny-w.livejournal.com]

Mark Hogan (SPIN) has responded to our tweet, so he has seen our open letter :)

[modestgoddess79.livejournal.com]

thank you so much

[luvey.livejournal.com]

woot woot thanks!! being pro active about this is really the best way to get the message across and HOPEFULLY people will pay attention.

[shanny-w.livejournal.com]

Hopefully! People need to give up saying "____ doesn't know any better" or it doesn't mean the same thing to them as us. It means something to a large group of people, and each time they see this or something that could be interpreted as this, there is going to be huge reaction. Basically people should be trying to inform their faves so this can stop happening and people stop getting hurt. Or they can not be bothered, do nothing and learn to deal with other people reacting.

[uledy.livejournal.com]

:D