'Now the world's watching': Soldier behind viral Kendrick Lamar cover talks inspiration, appropriation and ambition

Like many other able-bodied Korean men in their 20s, aspiring rapper Eom June, who performs under stage name Kober, enlisted in June last year to fulfill his mandatory military duty.

Now serving as a sentry with the Military Police Battalion at the Republic of Korea Air Force’s 19th Fighter Wing, Sgt. Eom found himself thrust into international headlines after his performance of Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us” (2024) and “tv off” (2024) went viral in August.

“Those were already very well-known songs, but the enthusiastic cheering and participation from the 19th Fighter Wing soldiers were particularly memorable for me,” Eom told the Korea JoongAng Daily in a written interview, recalling how his fellow service members sang along to the choruses and raised their hands to Lamar’s megahits.

Eom’s June 11 performance at the military concert hosted by Korean Forces Network, or KFN, aired two months later in August, and almost immediately gained traction online both home and abroad.

Millions of views and tens of thousands of comments flooded across platforms, ranging from praise, curiosity and also criticism of a Korean man performing lyrics deeply rooted in Black American culture and history.

So where does appreciation end and appropriation begin? The debate may not simply be about who performs a song — but what happens to its meaning as it moves across cultures.

Rapper-turned-airman

Before he became a service member, the 23-year-old sergeant was a rapper.

Eom first encountered hip-hop through the Korean rap competition program “Show Me the Money” (2012–) and has been writing his own songs and verses since 2014.

“When I first became interested in hip-hop and its origins in the United States, I began digging into music by artists such as Nas, Tupac and The Notorious B.I.G., some of the genre’s leading figures,” he said.

His extensive experience in learning English, including studying in the United States, has helped him with the language, particularly when performing in English.

As an aspiring musician, Eom’s greatest inspiration has been, perhaps unsurprisingly, Lamar — the Pulitzer Prize-winning rapper.

“I’ve been deeply inspired by the way he conveys his perspectives on human nature and social and historical issues through his lyrics and delivers those messages to the world,” Eom said.

KFN’s military concert is a long-running program which popular and well-known among not only service members but also the general public, featuring performances by both soldiers and professional K-pop artists.

With his opportunity to take the stage, Eom wanted to show respect for his fellow Air Force service members while creating a performance everyone could enjoy. That led him to select an overseas hip-hop track, something rarely performed on the program.

He ultimately chose to recreate the finale of one of the most widely and instantly recognizable hip-hop performances of recent years: Lamar’s Super Bowl performance from 2025.

Eom also added his own verses toward the end of “tv off,” including “Strike fear into the enemy, bring peace to the nation” — incorporating the 19th Fighter Wing’s unit motto — and “Five presidential commendations / Now the world’s watching,” as a tribute to the Air Force unit.

“I wanted to express my pride in and respect for the 19th Fighter Wing and its personnel, who defend the nation’s airspace,” he said.

‘Korean Lamar’

Eom’s fellow soldiers, as seen in the performance footage, cheered enthusiastically at his delivery, moving to the familiar beats and shouting along to the well-known verses.

“I think the unexpectedness of a Korean soldier performing Kendrick Lamar’s songs while faithfully capturing the original flow and vibe, as well as the overall quality of the performance, led to the enthusiastic response during the performance,” Eom said when asked why he thought the performance had become a hit.

The response online was just as strong, although across a wider range of reactions.

Footage of Eom’s performance posted on the Instagram account of U.S. hip-hop magazine XXL garnered more than 280,000 likes and 10,000 comments, with thousands more on YouTube and X.

Many comments praised his delivery in his second language and remarked on Lamar’s global influence. One comment playfully dubbed him “Korean Lamar,” drawing more than 20,000 likes.

Yet the performance also drew some criticism, particularly over Eom performing culturally charged verses from Lamar’s Super Bowl performance. Some of those lyrics included the phrase “40 acres and a mule,” a reference to the unfulfilled promise of land to formerly enslaved Black Americans, which some found strange coming out of the mouth of someone born and raised in Korea.

Eom addressed the criticism in an Instagram comment that read, “Huge respect for the Black culture and the music industry, and I apologize to those who may have felt uncomfortable [about me] singing this song as an Asian.”

“Understanding hip-hop’s history and cultural context is important,” Eom said. “Especially with Kendrick Lamar, the artist I respect most musically, I have always tried to understand his lyrics within the social and historical context of the Black community in the United States.”

“I of course understand that people hold different perspectives on the performance,” he continued, stressing that he did not take the discussion lightly.

“But I also want to say that the performance had no commercial purpose, as it was intended to boost morale among fellow soldiers,” he said. “I chose and performed the song out of an understanding of and respect for the culture of the artist I look up to.”

He added that he hoped the performance would show that Korea has many hip-hop fans who love songs that are popular in the United States and help broaden understanding between different societies.

Not like 'us'?

Hip-hop takes up a significant position in Korean popular culture, both in the mainstream and as a subculture, as the Korean hip-hop community follows the global scene while having an active local scene of its own. Yet the line between cultural appreciation and appropriation remains difficult to draw, especially given longstanding accusations of cultural appropriation by K-pop.

“This is not a conversation about appropriation or appreciation; it’s a conversation about appropriation and appreciation,” said Osarugue Otebele, assistant professor of Department of Visual Studies at University of Toronto Mississauga whose work encompasses global Black aesthetics and Black K-pop fandom. “They go hand in hand.”

Otebele noted that a non-Black performer’s admiration for Black culture cannot be separated from the broader history of Black music being exploited without proper recognition.

When it comes to “Not Like Us,” specifically, Otebele noted that once a song is released, its adoption can no longer be confined to its originally “imagined audience,” but she also stressed, “for a song that makes such a declarative statement of difference, it is important to know how this group of performers — soldiers — understands themselves in relationship to the ‘us’ referred to by Lamar.”

Park So-jeong, an assistant professor of cultural studies at Hanyang University, said that determining whether an act constitutes cultural appropriation requires considering factors such as whether the culture’s historical context has been erased, whether others are profiting while excluding the people who created it and whether the performance reinforces stereotypes or caricatures.

“Based on those criteria, I do not think Eom’s performance can be definitively characterized as a clear case of cultural appropriation,” Park said, partly given that Eom performed the songs for a non-commercial, morale-boosting military concert, describing it as “a case of global popular culture being received and translated within a different local context.”

“Still, the reactions of those who felt uncomfortable cannot be dismissed as wrong or meaningless,” Park added. “Even when a performance is approached with understanding and respect for a culture, members of that culture may interpret it differently in another context.”

The debate also did not emerge in isolation, as both Otebele and Park said international reactions were partly shaped by K-pop’s long and contentious history of borrowing from Black music, fashion, hairstyles and gesture.

Lee Gyu-tag, professor of cultural studies at George Mason University Korea, noted that Lamar’s Super Bowl performance of “Not Like Us” stands as an iconic pop culture moment, reaching well beyond a U.S. audience and making it difficult to argue that singing the song should be limited to a particular racial or cultural group.

“Power dynamics and commodification are also important to understanding cultural appropriation, and I do not think that a Korean soldier covering Lamar’s song, in and of itself, amounts to cultural exploitation in this case,” he said.

At the same time, Lee said the value of the discussion lies in encouraging audiences to learn why the song carries meanings they might not initially recognize.

“Rather than simply asking whether people should or should not sing a song like ‘Not Like Us’ or making a verdict, I think this can be a valuable case that leads people to consider the context behind the song and what constitutes cultural appropriation,” he said.

Eom himself hopes the public attention surrounding his performance may shed light on the diverse stories and discussions taking place within Korea’s hip-hop community.

Now, he is preparing to release his own music after completing his mandatory service.

“Personally, I hope to be introduced both as someone fulfilling his duty as a service member and as an individual pursuing music,” Eom said.

BY SHIN HA-NEE [[email protected]]