EPIK HIGH

"Before there was BTS or BigBang, there was Epik High," Vanity Fair proclaimed. "Ask anyone who’s been listening to K-pop and chances are they’d know Epik High because the pioneering Korean hip-hop trio has had a profound and far-reaching influence on Korean popular music." A legacy act in the making, Epik High is Tablo, Mithra Jin, and DJ Tukutz. With 20 years and 10 full-length albums to their name, the group are widely credited for uplifting Korea’s nascent hip-hop scene and paving the way for a generation of artists after them. Formed in 2001, Epik High’s initial climb was arduous and while their debut album, Map of the Human Soul, released in 2003, is now prolifically recognized, their sound was not immediately understood. “Their music was different, with an experimental mix of genres, poetic lyrics skillfully weaving English and Korean, punchlines abounding with homonyms, and dense rhymes,” Associated Press said. “The band has a knack for making songs about touchy subjects in South Korea, from its white-collar work culture, overly competitive educational system to religion.” All of their records, including Tablo’s solo album Fever’s End, have charted #1 on the Korean, Canadian, and U.S. iTunes hip-hop charts simultaneously.

For their 10th album, which was split into two projects, Epik High Is Here 上 (Part 1) in 2021 and Epik High Is Here 下 (Part 2) in 2022, Epik High delivered their most personal body of work to date. Both parts accumulated hundreds of millions of streams and received outstanding press, including Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair, Washington Post, Billboard, Elle, Seventeen, and San Francisco Chronicle. Part 2 was named by GQ one of the best albums of 2022, while “Rosario,” featuring CL and Zico, was named one of the best K-Pop songs of 2021 by The Ringer, Teen Vogue, and NME. Epik High, who is known for uplifting Korea’’s burgeoning music scene by bridging industry stalwarts with newcomers, have collaborated with RM of BTS, IU, CL, Taeyang, Jay Park, Younha, Crush, Bobby, B.I, Simon Dominic, MINO, pH-1, OHHYUK, Woo, Lee Hi, Wonstein, Colde, to name a few. Their recent accolades include the group’s return to Coachella in 2022 after being the first Korean act to perform at the festival in 2016 and their 2022 headlining North American tour. 2023 marked another triumphant run for Epik High, who began the year with the refreshed sounds of their Strawberry EP, which included features from Hwa Sa and Jackson Wang, and earned critical praise from Rolling Stone and Billboard. Epik High also spent much of the year on the road, bringing their “All Time High” tour to Europe, North America, Asia, and Latin America. Throughout the year, they headlined more than 40 concerts before closing out the year with the November release of “Screen Time” in collaboration with Hoshi of SEVENTEEN, and their run of three sold-out stadium shows at the SK Olympic Handball Gymnasium in Seoul for their 20th anniversary celebration.