Epik High has a deal for you.
The South Korean hip-hop group – consisting of Tablo, Mithra Jin, and DJ Tukutz – begins their North American “Epik High 3.0” at the end of this month and is offering their fans the “package” of a lifetime. Fans will not only get to see Epik High, but also meet the three guys from their variety show, EPIKASE (which is Tablo, Mithra, and Tukutz), and the podcaster from Hey Tablo! (which is Tablo).
This is the kind of humor to expect from the trio, who have been part of the Korean hip-hop industry for the past 23 years. Like Snoop Dogg, people have their own era of discovery of Epik High. There are those who have followed their career since the early 2000s know them as hardcore hip-hop artists who were active in the underground rap scene. There are those who followed them when they began doing more pop-based sounds with collaborations with K-pop aritsts. Or,this current generation of fans has been entranced by the group’s humor through their variety show appearances, their own shows, podcasts, collaborations with newer artists, and social media interactions.
Little do many know that Epik High was one of the first few South Korean groups to accomplish many feats – before K-pop truly exploded in the U.S. market. They were the first South Korean act to have a longstanding North American tour starting in 2009 (then 2015, 2019, 2022, 2023, 2024), making their upcoming tour their 7th. They were also the first Korean group to perform at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in 2016. Yet the group truly exploded when K-pop began dominating U.S. airwaves and culture.
Epik High has never considered themselves K-pop. They’re a hip-hop crew known for genre-bending music and deep, poetic lyrics in both English and Korean. The group tackled subjects like education, religion, mental health, heartbreak, loneliness, and personal controversies.– things that would be considered taboo at the time in Korea. Though they famously said they don’t care how people discover them, they just hope fans can connect with their music. But since so many people tend to lump them in with K-pop, the three decided to have fun with it – decades later with a fan meet and other various things that K-pop idol groups tend to do.
“We have to go back in time a bit,” Tablo says over Zoom from his home in Seoul. “But, to be honest, some of the things that we do started as a tongue-in-cheek or inside joke because we’re clearly not K-pop. We’re a hip-hop group, so when this whole thing first started, we made a calendar like idols do for fans – ‘Season’s Greetings’ at the end of the year. They make a calendar for the new year – and it’s awesome. In the pictures, they’re all good-looking and pretty – and everything is well done. We were like, ‘let’s make our own version of this – but deliberately shitty, right? In a way, that is awesome.”
The group took JC Penney-like family photos dressed in different costumes – including traditional hanboks, Squid Game costumes, parents with their daughter (Tablo was the daughter), guys on vacation, and more hilarious costumes. The Season’s Greetings calendar went viral and sold out on its pre-orders in 2022. The guys were overwhelmed by the positive response. They then began planning their next fun “idol” activity – a light stick.
Their light stick, which they called the ‘Park Kyu Bong’ (a play on words), was a white-gloved hand giving the middle finger, and it lights up. When preorders were released, it sold out within minutes.
‘Park Kyu’ Bong – Epik High’s Official Light Stick and mini Keychain version
EPIK HIGH
“It sort of branched out from there,” Tablo explains. “We did photocards and all these different things that are K-pop, but we did all of those in our own way. It became something that the general audience and public started expecting of us.”
Then came the fan meeting, which they called Epik High HQ. He states, “You can’t really do a fan meeting unless you have a place for fans. So we did our first fan meeting. It was great. It sold out completely.”
Tablo wishes they did more shows because it was so much fun. He was used to just singing/rapping at shows, but during these fan meetings, they really got to interact with their fans differently. Tukutz was doing aegyos (Korean word for “cute poses”). Tablo initially thought he had made a mistake by having them do these things, but he noticed the fans loved it.
“They get to see a different side of us,” says Tablo. “We had four or five fans come on stage to do ‘Rock, Paper, Scissors’ to decide which song we would do next. Each fan represented a different song because they all wanted different songs. So we made them battle for it – it was hilarious.”
Epik High plans to add a little bit of the fan-meeting element to their North American shows, making it feel like a meetup mixed into a concert. He wanted it to feel like “an interactive meet- up.” Tablo opened up about his concert no longer feeling ‘new.’ Sure, they know how to perform, but he realizes it can get old after a while.
In the past, Epik High did talk a lot during their speech moments, poking fun at each other, which fans really enjoyed. Tablo, Mithra, and Tukutz have amazing chemistry performing together; it makes sense they’d also connect through humor. The three have impeccable comedic timing and play off each other well. It was during their 2024 North America tour that they realized they should make their own variety show – EPIKASE. They wanted to change things up in their tours and how they marketed themselves.
DJ TUKUTZ of Epik High
EPIK HIGH
“It [felt] good to realize that fans love the other side of us,” he admits. “But also, just performing music, it’s great [and all], but we’re not offering anything new anymore. Maybe the fans might feel like it’s the same thing over and over again.”
That’s when Tablo suggested the group needed to “do content.” Mithra and Tukutz were actually against the idea. Not because they didn’t want to, but they are no longer in their early 20s. The three are working artists and married with children (Tablo and Mitra each have one child, and Tukutz has two). Mithra and Tukutz did not want more added responsibilities. It was only when Tablo suggested they try it out for a year – if it works out, great. If it doesn’t, they can stop.
Tablo explains, “It will make the experience for the fans way better when we tour again. Luckily, it turned out well – but very well – beyond our imagination. Our concerts, fan meetings, and offline interactions with fans have become much more intense. We share inside jokes and stories. Our concerts have become much more interactive. It’s not just music or banter. It’s sharing inside jokes with an audience because when we come together, it’s like a family gathering. We’re more tightly knit, and that’s why we launched a fan community right before this tour, so that all of these different aspects can come together.”
EPIKASE exploded in popularity with over 1.8 million YouTube subscribers, especially since the group knows and has worked with so many famous artists throughout their careers; they’ve brought them as guests to their shows, including BTS’s RM and SUGA. The BTS x EPIKASE video, which was released in March this year, has over six million views to date. They’ve also had BIG BANG, Stray Kids, IVE, and more on their show, garnering million of views. The trio has also expanded to global movie junkets, including Mission Impossible and Spider-Man: Brand New Day.
Tablo had a lot of faith in the variety series and knew it would take off. He did that because he envisioned the biggest possibilities for himself and his crew. He had high hopes when they first started, but was humbled by the initial views compared to now. The first six months were a grind.
“I don’t do things just to stay small,” he emphasizes. “I have huge thoughts and ideas for whatever I do. That’s one thing, but actually expecting it to happen is another. In the first couple of episodes, even our fans weren’t showing up. At the same time, there was no other audience except our fans, so I [knew] this was going to be a slow grind. I promised myself we were going to do this for one year – no matter what. Every week was just an exercise to get our brains going. You have to do it – and we kept it up. Everything just clicked.”
Mithra Jin of Epik High
EPIK HIGH
That’s when he also decided to launch his own podcast – Hey Tablo! Tablo, who is Korean Canadian, wanted an international program for their English-speaking fans, since EPIKASE is in Korean with English subtitles. He wanted a one-person podcast (Tablo is the only fluent English speaker in Epik High) because “those don’t exist these days,” and he wanted to do something different. He started doing podcasts and video casts where he talked about various subjects and even offered advice. The podcast paid off as it became popular and went viral. Hongjoong and Mingi of ATEEZ, actress Chase Infiniti, and Martin and James of CORTIS have all appeared as guests. Tablo noticed that Korean celebrities wanted to be on EPIKASE and those who mainly speak English want to be on Hey Tablo!
“A lot of people request to be on the show, and some of these people I really, really like,” Tablo reveals. “I’m not gonna give up the opportunity to do something fun with them.”
Fans can also expect to see some Hey Tablo! Content during the concerts- he could be advising audience members. It all depends on the mood of the concert. Tablo’s priority is for the fans to have a good time. He says, “During [the last tour], we only had music to think about, but now we have weekly interactions with fans twice a week because of the podcast as well. Being able to interact with the people that I’m going to be performing for is awesome because I get to gauge week by week what they need or might want to see or what they want to be freed from or emotions they’re going through.”
That’s why Tablo was so frustrated with how ticketing has been for fans who struggled to purchase their VIP packages, which include a meet-and-greet and a photo with Epik High. His team went through several hurdles to fix it. Tablo huffed, “It was confusing, enraging, and disappointing all at the same time. For some of the tickets, all the ticketing links were grayed out so that fans couldn’t buy any tickets, and many of the sites weren’t functioning properly. I spent maybe a day just knowing various people in charge. It took three or four days to fix all the issues. To be honest, we’re still in there, extremely frustrated.”
For now, Tablo is just creating content – including the EPIKASE Song Battle against his fellow members (For which he asked fans to vote for his song “anime” ft. Bang Yedam, to win profit-sharing benefits and a six-month reign as the group’s leader) – and prepping for the tour, for which he has now announced voluntary-themed dress codes for each city.
When asked whether he feared that becoming more known for their content (for this generation) than their music, he isn’t too concerned. He rarely thinks about what others think about him or what Epik High’s “legacy” is because it’s not up to him. He can’t force how the public or fans perceive him because it’s their right to think for themselves.
“If they want to see me as a serious musician, that’s fine,” he says bluntly. “If they want to see me as the ‘goofball’ in EPIKASE, that’s fine too. Or if they want to see me as the yapper on my podcast, it’s all fine too – because all of those parts are me. All of those things are us – Epik High. We really don’t care about keeping those spaces separate. I have no problem flipping from being the guy on Hey Tablo! or EPIKASE, being hilarious – then the lights go dim, and I start singing ‘Stop the Rain’ or a dead serious song. For some reason, our fans must be used to it or something, because they can flip it on and off too. They can be laughing, and then two seconds later, they could vibe to a depressing song. It works out.”
Epik High begins their Epik High “3.0” Tour North America on September 30 in New York. Then they hit 11 other cities, including Boston, Toronto, Chicago, Washington, DC, Atlanta, Dallas, Los Angeles, Oakland, Vancouver, Seattle, Las Vegas, and San Diego, throughout October. For more information on their tour and tickets, click here.
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