I got an email from K.O.A. Records that wanted to share some news they had gotten from a friend, and I turn want to share with you. (Always nice with something different from the release updates, don’t you think?)

There is a group of Korean musicians called “대한민국 음악인 시국 선언문” that have written a kind of declaration/manifesto: “basically they are angry at the president and saying that they will continue to make music that loves human beings and won’t sell out or get discouraged”. (If anyone cares to translate the entire thing, please let me know) I don’t really know any details on what prompted this writing, but from what I was told many people find the current regime repressive, and this group of musicians has previously released a statement concerning a lack of funding that this year’s KMA did not get any funding from the ministry of culture.

The funding issue aside, I can’t say I follow Korean politics well enough to know why the Lee Myung Bak government would be considered repressive, but I do recall that he proposed blacklisting of select bands following the Rux incident on Music Camp (Scroll to the bottom of Nudeviking’s Banned From The End Of The World K-Pop Krap post to refresh your memory) while still just the mayor of Seoul.