GFN Radio: The Afternoon Show with JD 54. GFN Radio: Top of The Drop

By JD

CULTURE & ARTS The Afternoon Show with JD is a multilingual and multicultural show that airs daily at 12:10–2:00 p.m. on weekdays and at 12:00–2:00 p.m. on weekends on GFN, aiming to edutain listeners with pertinent information vital to their lives here in South Korea. The show is hosted and produced by JD, a media graduate and specialist. The show offers services mainly in English, Korean, and Russian and has recently added Tagalog to its weekly segments. Our podcast services also offer information in over 20 languages and have close to 300,000 views so far.

Since the inception of the show, the aim has been to make it as widely accessible as possible to everyone in the Gwangju and Jeollanam-do community, and we have constantly been working to improve and deliver on this.

Our slogan is “Diverse, Inclusive, Representative, Multicultural, and Multilingual with the Best in Pop and Pop Culture from Around the World.” From the music we play on the show to the culturally diverse guests and contents that we create daily, the most important factor is that it has to emphasize and highlight the globalized, multicultural world that we live in.

Prior to The Afternoon Show (TAS), I was the host and segment producer of Kpopular, GFN’s Hallyu show. This show focused mainly on Korean pop-culture content and played only K-pop. However, once we evolved into TAS, it was important for me to create a show that heightened representation and inclusivity as well. Not only did we start playing pop music from around the world, but we also ensured that the content was multilingual so that local and international audiences could better understand the messages that we aimed to deliver. We have segments including English and Korean language learning, demystifying the news, inspirational quotes, recipes, and just fun chats to get listeners through lunchtime with energizing music.

I also aimed to make the show more socially conscious in that we not only focused on pop culture and music but also on how these could be used as a way to tackle issues within society that are either not being addressed or have been sidelined. Thus, I prioritized edutainment: education and entertainment with pop culture as the cultural diplomacy vehicle.

When you listen to the show, you will hear not only the best variety of music; I also tailor each show to be a reflection of what is happening in society at that moment. We create and facilitate conversations and highlight how important engaging with issues is in creating a globally aware society that is diverse, more open-minded, and promoting of mutual understanding.

I have also placed a huge emphasis on the show being multilingual. Gwangju has a large foreign community,

and since contents were mainly provided in English and Korean, during the conception of the show in 2016, I decided to broaden it even more. I have always believed that access to multilingual information is imperative, especially for delivering emergency and disaster management messages. Thus, after being invited as speaker at a global multilingual conference in 2019 with UNESCO, I adopted some of my findings there to the show. This all came to fruition in 2020 with the COVID-19 pandemic and lack of multilingual resources within South Korea.

I started a social impact campaign on the show with crowdsourcing help from the amazing Gwangju community. With information from the KDCA (Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency), we started the Let’s Keep Gwangju Safe Together Campaign with preventative guidelines and information in over 20 different languages in order to inform and help protect the community. You might recall that emergency information at that point was (and to some extent still is) only available in Korean. The campaign was hugely successful and is one of the most viewed on our audio-on-demand (AOD) service. Adding onto this, I branched out and also did multilingual info packets on other disaster management and emergency information, including typhoon and flood warnings and heat waves, in addition to producing numerous long-form documentary projects like a global COVID-19 time capsule project with responses from over 60 countries, a World Aids Day informational documentary, and numerous other projects surrounding Hallyu around the world.

Thus, if you are looking for an energetic edutainment experience, you can tune in any day of the week and not only brush up on what is happening around you but also enjoy some fantastic global pop hits. We are also always looking to help improve understanding and increase safety within our community, and therefore, we are reaching out and asking that if anyone would like to volunteer to help record emergency services in their native language, they should get in contact with us so that we can improve our service to the community. You can contact us at gfnafternoonshow@gmail.com.

Photographs by JD and courtesy of GFN.

Let’s Keep Gwangju Safe, Together Campaign Website: http://www.gfn.or.kr/radio_intro.php?menu_ id=302 theafternoonshowithJD @gfntaswithjd

JD holds multiple degrees in media, film, and management policy. He is also a cultural diplomacy specialist. Stay safe and protected, and check out our multilingual audio on demand podcast on our website www.gfn.or.kr. JD can be found at @gfntaswithjd

Top of The Drop By Daniel J. Springer

Since the release of their second career LP American Love Call in March 2019, it has been quite the consequential couple of years for the group, especially for drummer and falsetto vocalist Aaron Frazer, who not only released his debut solo album in January this year but has started branching out into production as well. With this release, the band that originally met and released their debut as students at Indiana University have announced their third career album, Private Space. A supremely vibey, disco-inspired party track that is definitely a departure for the group stylistically, the album seems to be setting a marker for the band by showing where they’re going rather than reminiscing on where they’ve been.

For those unfamiliar, don’t let the moniker get you twisted, as Michelle Zauner was born in Seoul to a Korean mother. One of the rising stars in the indie game, her new album, Jubilee, is the artist’s career fifth, and this album really sees the artist going for it on a stylish and eclectic record that feels perfect for right now but still has the indie panache she’s become known for. “Posing for Cars,” the final cut on the LP, is a perfect example of this, as it just closes everything perfectly.

Record Store Day is June 12 this year, and the biggest release set for that day is the triple LP being released by Dallas-based Eastwood Music called The Truth to Power Project. Initially a small local project, it has mushroomed into a star-studded super album, with Grammy Award winner Leon Bridges and producer S1 joining the fray. You can also expect cuts from BadBadNotGood, Ghost Funk Orchestra, Holy Hive, Bastards of Soul, and this final single, featuring Paul Schalda and Grammy-nominated, Black Pumas man-behind-the-mirror Adrian Quesada.

In what might be the most anticipated “indie” record of the year, Lucy Dacus is out with Home Video as of June 25. While not the final single released before the album nor the most notable in terms of hype, “VBS” very successfully conveys this narrative of looking back on one’s childhood, knowing now what you didn’t realize back then, and all the jagged emotions that accompany these realizations.

The artist here is a tremendously talented singer-songwriter and producer who dropped an ominously titled but exceedingly positive album called Hammer Down on June 4. The artist describes his sound as inspired by indie-pop, chillwave, yacht rock, and electro-disco, encouraging the listener to “think Toro y Moi meets MGMT” and you’ve got a good idea. Great LP to check if you’re having a downer of a day.

After dropping his career seventh album, Chasing the Sun, last year in September, producer Andrew Spraggon still has a few tricks up his sleeve, with this being a notable link-up between two of the best beatmakers in New Zealand. For those unfamiliar, High Hoops is the solo moniker of Jordan Arts, who is also a member of Leisure.

Former A Tribe Called Quest member Ali Shaheed Muhammad and Adrian Younge have been cooking up something very special with their Jazz Is Dead label, inviting the absolute cream of the crop, from Roy Ayers to Gary Baertz to Marcos Valle, just to name a handful. Jazz Is Dead 7 (JID 007) sees another Brasilero legend in bossa pianist João Donato join the crew for another masterfully produced and innovative full-length.

The main artist here is Sydney-based producer and songwriter Nathan Hawkes, who made his debut with a very well-received EP called Up to You. However, his latest EP, Forever Holiday, kind of takes it up a few notches with this tune featuring L’Imperatrice lead singer Flore Benguigui adding her usual pitch-perfect silk to the vocals. Be ye warned: The Empress can do no wrong.

After a rousing contribution to several tracks on Sola Rosa’s Chasing the Sun last year, it seems that the former collaborator with The Streets on Original Pirate Material is ready to truly get back at it. His latest LP, Heart String, is a beautiful rumination on recent times with the artist often going it solo on the piano therein, but there’s still a little bump and electronic magic to let you feel it along the way too.

This is off the artist’s debut EP, Off the Rails, which just dropped June 4 and created a lot of great buzz. In an interview, when prompted to describe her music in the form of a dating app bio, she said, “Master of none overly sarcastic musician with too many hobbies and a love of arts and crafts, board games, and bowling (but not good at bowling).”

While Kamen might not be based here in Gwangju since moving to Jeju, the brilliant Berklee College of Music grad is absolutely considered family here forever. In a new development, the artist is releasing her debut solo album, the scintillating classical piano-based instrumental collection I Dreamt We Fell in Love, due out September 9. This single drops July 7, and we’ll have Kamen on The Drop for an exclusive interview and playlist selection on Friday to talk about the new album and the sounds that inspire him as an artist. Don’t miss it!

Daniel J. Springer (aka “Danno”) is the creator, host, writer, editor, and producer of The Drop with Danno, broadcasting nightly on GFN 98.7 FM in Gwangju and 93.7 FM in Yeosu between 8 and 10 p.m. Prior to this, he was a contributor to several shows on TBS eFM in Seoul, along with being the creator and cohost of Spacious and White Label Radio on WNUR in Chicago. You can find “The Damyang Drop,” his monthly collaborative playlist with The Damyang House, on YouTube and Spotify. @gfnthedrop

Japanese Breakfast – Jubilee (June 4) Black Pumas – Capitol Cuts: Live from Studio A (June 4) Garbage – No Gods No Masters (June 11) V/A – Truth to Power Project (June 12) Kings of Convenience – Peace or Love (June 18) Mykki Blanco – Broken Hearts and Beauty Sleep (June 18) Lucy Dacus – Home Video (June 25) Faye Webster – I Know I’m Funny haha (June 25)

Lana Del Rey – Blue Banisters (July 4) Half Waif – Mythopoetics (July 9) Chiiild – Hope for Sale (July 23) Samia – Scout (July 23) Molly Burch – Heart of Gold (July 23) Darkside – Spiral (July 23) Durand Jones & The Indications – Private Space (July 30) Billie Eilish – Happier Than Ever (July 30)