With her addictive flow and sexually open lyrics, rapper Kim So-hee, a.k.a. Queen WA$ABII is no stranger to controversy. Kim debuted with her single “Look at my!” in 2019, but gained popularity through the hip-hop survival television program Good Girl.
Kim told Ewha Voice that she feels most attached to her song from Good Girl titled “Hi, baby?” as it is the song which led her to fame. Her performance video of “Hi, baby?” ranked 3rd in the most watched YouTube videos by Mnet Official (the producer of Good Girl) in 2020. The video now has over 11.47 million views as of May 24. In the song, Kim explicitly speaks of her body and figure, using double-entendres for words such as “hard” or “peach.”
Fans are often surprised when the artist reveals that she majored in moral education as an undergraduate in Ewha, which some would say is a contrast to her openness to sexuality. Kim also explained that she felt alienated in a Christan school and an education major because she found it harder to fit into the relatively more conservative atmosphere.
“My college life was the hardest time for me,” Kim said. “People treated me as eccentric, and my self-esteem fell from forcing myself to compete with other students in school. This is when I learned the importance of independence and that life is hard.”
Kim explained that her journey of pursuing her dream was far from easy. At 21, she was originally an aspiring hip-hop dancer until she injured her pelvis, which stopped her from pursuing that path. Upon watching a hip-hop survival program called SHOW ME THE MONEY, Kim decided she wanted to try rapping. This was not without its own hardships, as Kim developed vocal cord nodules, which took three years to recover from. This was when she made her last attempt at her rapping career in Good Girl.
“It was the first big achievement I made, right at the last moment when I was contemplating whether I should give up,” Kim said. “I think you should be as passionate about your goals as much as you can, at least in your twenties. I tried all sorts of things in my early twenties without thinking I made any progress. Now that I look back, I think all those experiences were part of my journey in pursuing my passion.”
Kim did not always feel welcome approaching sexual topics in her song writing. According to her, as a student, not only her parents but also her professor and boyfriend at the time were against her style of music and writing.
“I still respected my values the most, and stubbornly stuck to what I thought was fun and enjoyable,” Kim said. “I continued being frank with my lyrics because it annoyed me how people hushed the topic despite secretly liking to talk about it.”
In one of Kim’s most recent songs, “I forgot,” she explicitly states that she has forgotten how many men she has slept with because it has been so long since her last sexual relationship.
On multiple occasions, the artist stated that her straight-forward lyrics has earned her numerous female fans. She feels that women who were brought up in a Confucianist society feel liberated by her sexually straight- forward lyrics.
In Queen WA$ABII’s newest single album, “PLUG BOY(feat. BLOO),” which is due to be released on May 26, fans will be expecting to see a different side of the artist. She mentioned in an interview that this song is a “Kim So-hee version,” in contrast to her previously open and explicit songs.