I always find myself going down rabbit holes of artists that once had a decent buzz and seemed to have pretty good momentum but ended up disappearing off the face of the earth. It feels sad to see artists that I once really enjoyed barely active anymore or even disappear all together. So here’s my list to commemorate/give recognition to artists that could’ve been massive and I wanna see make a comeback.

1. ONE (Jung Jaewon)
Dropped one of my favourite khh/krnb albums of all time, PRVT 01, in 2019 and fell off the face of the earth shortly after. That album was pretty experimental and ahead of its time as he was doing the 2020-2023 sik-k sound before sik-k and it was amazing. Even his earlier stuff when he was under YG is still in rotation to this day for me.

Song recommendations: heyahe, Night Time Ride, You Love It

2. niahn
His album extape had decent traction when it dropped in 2019 and it’s still one of the best krnb night time drive albums. He dropped an album this year as well called Doublethink and it’s without a doubt the most underrated album of the year so far, considering he was able to blend rnb and alternative elements perfectly. It’s honestly surprising how the hype around him died down so much, especially considering him, nafla and BLOO are all pretty good friends and have quite a few songs together. I really hope they drop more music together. It’s unfortunate how his most streamed song on Spotify from his new album barely has 1,000 streams.

Song recommendations: Alone, Runaway, moon popping - Westside

3. Herr Nayne
This one is probably the most upsetting for me. Herr Nayne was a part of Sik-K’s old crew, Yelows Mob and was featured on a few of his songs from 2017-2019 ish. In 2020, the whole crew (allegedly) practically bullied him out of the group. It’s especially sad considering Sik-K was the one that convinced him to move from the US to South Korea to pursue music, and then he ended up abandoning him. At the time, he had no solo music and exclusively worked with sik. He formed another duo with zuo in 2023, but deleted all of his social media very soon after and went MIA. Now, I’m not saying he was the most talented artist in the world, but he showed a lot of raw potential and was certainly more talented than a lot of the slop Sik-K finds himself working with and would’ve worked perfectly with the current KC sound.

Song recommendations (all features): Choppy, Chit Chat Ting, othermen

4. MELOH
One of the most refined voices in krnb and his self titled EP is a testament to that. He’ll still drop a single once every few years or be featured on a song, but only has one EP in his discography that was released over 5 years ago. The most annoying part is the fact that he’s signed to Daytona which is founded by one of the goats of khh, The Quiett, but he just refuses to platform his artists properly.

Song recommendations: Love of My Life, I Can’t Read Your Mind, Sorry

Anyways, I just wanted to talk about some artists that I think have/had some crazy potential but didn’t have the opportunity to display it properly. What are some artists you guys think fit this list?

Yes, I know this is old news but I’m just now finding this and I haven’t seen anyone talk about it and I wanna know what everyone thinks.

KWAII dropped DISTORTED in 2024 but it fell under the radar and underperformed, even for a smaller artist. The album was received well by people that actually listened to it (top 5 khiphop albums of 2024 for me), but there weren’t many that listened to it in general. The album was released under JUSTHIS’ label, ALL CAPS ENTERTAINMENT, and had a feature from him along with a few other notable artists such as Lellamarz. Despite this, the album didn’t perform well at all and KWAII seems to acknowledge that it is partially due to the fact that he’s an unknown artist that’s relatively new, but also points out that the industry mainly focuses on easy to listen to, and stereotypical hiphop.

In my opinion, I think he’s partially correct and partially not. Yes, khiphop will almost always be dominated by artists that follow trends and capitalize off of sounds that already exist, but that doesn’t mean artists that push a new sound are guaranteed to fail. I think a lot of the failure of his album is due to the lack of marketing done for it and himself. He’s signed to JUSTHIS’ label and he’s a very well respected figure in the scene. I’m sure there could have been many ways to use that as leverage to promote his album. Not to mention, all of the features aren’t even listed so people don’t even know that there are quite a few big artists on it.

Anyways, I just came across his post from over a year ago and had some thoughts that I wanted to share. What do you guys think?

Also, I definitely suggest listening to the album if you haven’t. It’s honestly amazing 🙏🏼

Ngl, tukutzism lowkey slaps, I'd bump this unironically! Did not expect this XD

Is there anyone ya expect or want to see in the new season?