Another Day, Another Debut: 24K's "Hurry Up"

September brings us Choeun Entertainment‘s new boy group 24K, which is made up of six members ranging in Western age from 20-22: Cory, Sung-oh, Ki-su, Seok-jun, Dae-il, and Byung-ho. While most groups passed unnoticed without strong promotion tactics, this one sticks out just a little more than the others because of the distinctly established subgroups. 4K, which debuted earlier this June with “Rocking Girl,” is made up of the first four members listed above. The subgroup is the acoustic unit and has emphasis on vocals and creating comfortable music. The remaining duo is called — you probably guessed it — 2K. Their main focus is performance and hip-hop, with both members being the rappers of the group. They have yet to embark on their own endeavors. Together, the group is 24K, pronounced as “two-four K” and stylized with the 4 backwards.

The group released their self-titled debut mini-album with title track, “Hurry Up,” on September 5th.

The music video starts out pretty decent. “Parking Area” is clearly indicated; the camera movements and lights make it seem like something interesting is about to happen. But then it turns into a poorly done speed/drifting scene. From there, the music video actually starts, the first scenes being a masked dancer and a party with cars in a parking garage. The shaky camera work covering the cars–whose intent is presumably to create excitement or tension–continues and is a bit amateur. This car drifting forever in a single path is shown multiple times in the video. Okay, cars are cool. But this one doesn’t even seem to be a racing car fit for a grand impression, and it has no place taking up so much screen time.

Typical scenes of break-dancing are shown; nothing special there. Somehow this group manages to become the next ones in the center of the crowd dancing their less-impressive dance. It’s a good way to integrate the choreography with what is actually happening in the music video, but doesn’t quite fit because of the standard of the choreography.

Regarding the storyline, there’s a woman that leaves the party in the parking area to go to another one. And a suspicious man following this woman. He finally catches up with her as she arrives at a party that is very similar to the parking area party she left. And this doesn’t quite match up with the some of the lyrics. The storyline seems to be separate from the members themselves: they’re only performers at this party. But with lyrics like “hurry up,” “I’m on my way to the floor, that’s my stage you know,” and “everybody party night,” there isn’t clear representation of what is happening between the man and this woman, if she’s frightened, if she’s expecting him, or really any indication of how the viewer should take it. It’s nice that there’s an attempt at a storyline, but for a viewer to comprehend it well, the mood of the music, the acting, and the chosen scenes should be sufficient to tell a story. In addition, the boys could use some work on their facial expressions. They’re rookies, so there’s no need to overly criticize them as surely they’ll grow and do better, but some of those expressions were a mite painful to watch.

The choreography, better shown in the scenes with water, for this dance wasn’t bad. But for the some of the more intense sounds that the song has, the choreography fell a little short. For example, during the chorus, the only dance move is an exaggerated motion to tell someone to come over. While it fits the lyrics of “hurry up,” more could have been done to match the gravelly yells that occur at that point. On the positive side, there were some moments when the choreography did shine through. The close-up on tutting with added special effects was done well and added a bit of excitement. Also, the individual dancing done by some of the members was more captivating than most group parts. The vocals were also very well done. The members of 4K can clearly sing well, though I’d like to hear more of Ki-su, who got barely any lines. From 2K, Dae-il possesses the gravelly voice that rocks the beginning, and it’s a welcome pitch and tone to hear for rapping. Byung-ho receives little rapping time–because of poor line distribution or still-growing abilities in that area is unknown.

The music video receives a 2.3/5, a slightly-below average score. It’s not horrible per say, but it does have major flaws that detract from the abilities of the group. The storyline is confusing, the choreography is only average, and the acting doesn’t help any. Unnecessary scenes were shot, and the situations overused cliches. But the group definitely is there musically with vocals and rap. Individual members have solid dancing ability, though this choreography didn’t let through the skills of most others as much.

(Choeun Entertainment, choeunentofficial, Kpop Lyrics, Star News)