From declarative album titles like Epik High Is Here and We’ve Done Something Wonderful to the more conceptual Shoebox and [e], Tablo, Mithra Jin and DJ Tukutz of Epik High have always been intentional in a multifaceted way with their record titles.
The hip-hop trio’s latest project leans toward the latter for the group to deliver a new sound that speaks to a fresh mindset and return to their roots as musicians after releasing their debut album 20 years ago.
“We like strawberry representing the album because it’s sweet and fresh, which is what we wanted to do at the beginning of our 20th anniversary,” explains group leader Tablo. “We thought that people would expect some music that is reminiscing and weighed down by the years, and we wanted to go against that expectation and just create something that sounds like three guys that just decided to create a group together. But strawberries are interesting because they’re so fragile; you can smash them up with your thumb but, somehow, they’ll stain on your table perfectly fine. And it reminds me of blood when it’s squished. So, there’s a little bit of pain in that sweetness. I think that that’s what Epik High is.”
Despite opening and closing the new Strawberry EP with, as they describe, “Epik High-ish” lo-fi tracks, the EP boasts some of the group’s most mass-appealing tracks in years inside: the knocking, melancholy hip-hop cut “On My Way” with Chinese K-pop star Jackson Wang, the disco-tinged “Catch” is smoothed out by a perfect feature from Hwa Sa of girl group MAMAMOO, plus an explicit, relatable freestyle from Tablo examines the online and real-life chaos of 2023. While Epik High has toured their brand of Korean hip-hop tour across the globe and scored multiples across Billboard‘s World Albums and World Digital Songs chart, Strawberry is intentionally described as a “global album” by the band to share their current mindset.
“Technically speaking, all our albums have been global, but not by choice, right?” muses Tablo. “K-pop and Korean music became a global thing even though it wasn’t ever a global release. But as a result, the audience for our albums has grown wider. And here’s how I approach progressing as a musician: I don’t think of myself as leading the way and my audience has to follow where I go—I will make music in the way that I want—but I believe that as my audience grows geographically and I’m flying there to perform for them, I want them in the center of my mind and my heart when I’m creating music. Before, I would create the music and the music’s audience grew. Now, that audience is affecting the way I create music as well, like, they’re in my mind when I make music…I think more because of COVID; I think how the entire globe is sharing the same fears and inspirations and hopes and dreams. We were just made more aware of it and, as a result, I think with this album, it’s just a mindset thing—calling it a ‘global album’ because there’s no real difference to how we’re releasing it; we’re just saying that because we want to remind ourselves that we are now speaking to people all over the world and we want them to know that we care about them.”
Despite Epik High intending for last February’s release of Epik High Is Here to be their final album, the trio naturally found themselves creating music again after career highlights like returning for their second Coachella performance and surrounding themselves with other musicians.
“So we actually did decide internally that Epik High Is Here would sort of be the last album,” Tablo explains. “Epik High Is Here Part 2 ends with ‘Champagne,’ which is sort of going back to the very first song on our first album [‘Go’ on Map of the Human Soul]. It’s like the curtain call. We were like, ‘We’ve made so many albums and I don’t think there’s anything we can really say. So, let’s continue to be Epik High and perform, but I’m not sure if we should ever make an album again. It was like a collective decision. What happened was…damn it, Coachella kind of inspired us again. We were like, ‘Oh my God…'”
Tablo says California continued to inspire the band despite their professional promises: “We just assumed that maybe we’ll release one single in October 2023 when it actually becomes 20 years, but nothing else. And then we were in LA for some festival, we just had like a week in L.A. but only one show so we had all this time. Being who we are, we ended up with a lot of musicians just making music and ended up with a ton of songs. We were like, ‘What do we do with these songs? We promised each other that we wouldn’t release an album,’ and then Tukutz was like, ‘This isn’t actually an album if we’re releasing three to five songs. Technically, it’s just a project.’ And I’m like, ‘You’re right. We did say we will never release another studio-length album so we’re not breaking that promise…yet.’ And we justified it to ourselves, hence, this situation.”
Let Epik High break down their new album/project/situation Strawberry below, track by track:
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"Strawberry"
Tablo: We wanted to start the album with a deceptively Epik High–ish kind of lo-fi, jazzy vibe. It starts with like the beginning of a press conference. And as soon as you’re like, “Okay, this is like something I’m familiar with from Epik High.”
Tukutz: It’s fresh, just like a strawberry.
Mithra: Most people yearn for a sweet life, but oftentimes are faced with bitter consequences. The first track “Strawberry” will make you dream, but the real message starts with “On My Way.”
Tablo: “On My Way” is sort of what we would say if we were doing our last press conference. So it begins with, “I need y’all to shut up for a minute.” And then I’m saying a lot of things that I wanted to say. And at the end, I’m like, “I quit my job today.” In the middle of “On My Way” there’s also, the press conference still going on. So we thematically created it in a way. We’re like, people walk into an Epik High press conference expecting things, and then they get it a little bit, and then we kind of just like flip the table on them.
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"On My Way" Featuring Jackson Wang
Image Credit: OURS Co. Tablo: I featured on one of Jackson’s songs last year [“Imagine”] and it’s sort of like happened out of the blue. I’ve never worked with Jackson before; we have run into each other at award shows and stuff back in the day, but we didn’t really know each other that well. I featured on a song he was releasing and we ended up performing it on a very popular hip-hop show in China, [The Rap of China]. And when I went to shoot the performance with him, we shot it in Singapore and it was very late at night and we were together for a very long time shooting this because it was a pretty complicated shoot. We had a really good conversation. He struck me as a very complex individual. The conversation we had was just very interesting and he was very passionate. He showed me some of the things that he was working on and that he wanted to accomplish. This guy just struck me as, as pure of an artist as you can get. And what I realized is that there are probably a lot of people that don’t see him that way, right? Because all of us are dealing with how people perceive us and who we actually are. That was something in my head.
And when I created “On My Way,” that’s what the song’s about. It’s about me and who I really am, sort of fighting to protect myself against all the expectations people have of me. And unfortunately, we now live in a world where perception is stronger than reality than actuality. Who I really am doesn’t matter if people are able to paint me in a certain way because that carries more legs.
I came up with the song and the hook lyrics are like, “You hate the way I talk/ You hate the way I am/ Well, then I’m on my way.” I couldn’t think of anyone better than Jackson to express that with me and it’s because I knew him. I got to see a little bit of him on an individual level, and I just felt like he would be the perfect person to communicate it.
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"Catch" Featuring Hwa Sa
Image Credit: Courtesy of OURS Co. Tablo: So, just like how we chose Jackson, “Catch” has a dual meaning, it can be like, “No matter what you do, you can’t catch up to me.” At the same time, it’s like, “When you’re falling, I want to be there to catch you.” And so it’s like a song with attitude, and like an “F you” kind of song. But it has to be done in a warm and elegant way, and we couldn’t think of anyone better than Hwa Sa, who is able to express both. Because Hwa Sa embodies…just her general swagger has that. Like, “don’t f-ck with me, but I have empathy and I will be there when you need me.” Hwa Sa has that to the max. So, it was a perfect fit. Obviously, she sounds amazing on it. It was just a perfect match.
What’s interesting is both Jackson and Hwasa, and Epik High, all of us are like in our tour mode. After COVID, all of us have been heavily touring. Jackson is doing a world tour. Hwa Sa and MAMAMOO are touring all over the place. Epik High as well. So every time we talked, all three of us were in different countries. When I first started to talk with Hwa Sa, I was in the Philippines and she was somewhere else. And then when we talked again, she was in another country and I was also in another country. So there was a lot of remote back and forth, but Hwa Sa and Epik High met recently and we performed a live version of the song.
That was our first time meeting Hwa Sa, but for Jackson, when I first discussed the song with him, we had to meet in Japan. I met him in Tokyo for a shoot and that’s where we discussed it because I think he was like in Singapore right before, and I think I was like in Bangkok or something. It’s just like all the musicians that are on this album have been just all over the place and I think that just makes sense because it’s global-minded.
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"Down Bad Freestyle"
Tablo: The stuff I talked about, it’s just more comfortable for me to do it in that language. I don’t think it’s a conscious decision. In most of my songs, I will just hop in and out of different languages based on where my mind goes. And the stuff I talked about on “Down Bad,” I think it just works better in English. It’s talking about “cancel culture,” it talks about [controversial Korean cryptocurrency developer] Do Kwon and just people being “down bad” financially and also emotionally.
I think my favorite line is, “Sorry, I can’t talk right now with all of this duct tape over my mouth.” Because like when you’re on iMessage and someone can’t talk, it pops up that message, “Sorry, I can’t talk right now.” That’s the default message. That’s the default choice it gives you when you can’t pick up someone’s phone call. And so I see that message a lot because I’m like, getting ready for a performance or in a meeting or something. And I’m like, “Dude, this is like the default message of everyone living in 2023: ‘Sorry, I can’t talk right now.'” Like we’re either too occupied or our attention is just not there or we’re literally not allowed to talk or say what we think. I just felt like that was just the perfect way to end the song.
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"God's Latte"
Mithra Jin: These days, whether you believe in God or not, people seem to think, speak, and act like others are beneath them. As if they themselves are God. If there was a God, wouldn’t he be speechless when he saw this? I wanted to talk about the world from God’s point of view.
Tablo: We start the album with like a very Epik High–ish, lo-fi vibe and we also end the album with a very Epik High–ish vibe because, I don’t know, I just felt like it would be fun to. Like if somebody heard just the first track and the last track, they wouldn’t know all the stuff that happens in the middle. I don’t know. For some reason, I look at a strawberry and that’s what it looks like to me. It looks pretty and stuff, but then like inside, it’s like very bloody; you get that on a shirt, and that’s never going away. So it just felt like this is what a strawberry would look like audio-wise: very soft and stuff on the outside and then inside, there’s like these whirlwinds of colors and textures going on. “God’s Latte,” it’s a weird title but it’s just this song is about me like literally having God sit down with me for coffee and I asked him, “Yo, what kind of people end up in hell?” And he’s like, “Your time with me is up.” So, he doesn’t even answer. I don’t know if it was like a dream or a vision or whatever, but I just pictured, like, sitting down with God for a coffee. If you could ask one question, what would you ask, and would he even be able to answer? Would he or she be able to answer either? Is there an answer?