BTS’ Suga has praised Psy for “paving the way for K-pop” in America.
Back in 2012 Psy became the highest-charting Korean pop act on the Billboard Hot 100 when ‘Gangnam Style’ peaked at number two and Suga believes this was a huge factor in BTS’ success.
Speaking on Psy’s YouTube channel, Suga said. “He was always someone I was grateful for. With ‘Gangnam Style,’ he paved the way for K-pop in the US so that we were able to follow his footsteps with ease.”
Now Suga and Psy have collaborated on ‘That That’, the title track from ‘Psy 9th’, Psy’s long-awaited new studio album.
And Psy admitted Suga inspired him to return to music after a five-year hiatus.
He said: “He came with the track and he suggested [it to] me. He wanted to produce [the song for] me.
“I was boosted with that incident, that young blood of that musician. We worked together, it was fun and I thought, ‘Yeah, this is music; this was what I’ve been doing since I was young.’ When I saw what he was doing, improvising and his enthusiasm, I got literally infected from him. It was the right way: talking, chatting, laughing, and spitting and feelin’ it. Day one, we meet and of course, we talked about music, right? But the quote he said was absolutely the trigger – he said, ‘Hyung, regarding hip-hop, the ’90s were the bomb.’ But the boy was born in the ’90s! He talked to me about Biggie and Tupac, I was like, ‘How do you know all that?’ He’s really crazy about ’90s hip-hop.”