Park Hye Jin: Before I Die review – forthright to a fault

Bedroom-dreamy and in-your-face all at once, the young rapper-producer’s debut album is an unsettling affair

Thanks to her track Like This being included on the Fifa 21 video game soundtrack, this South Korean-born, LA-based producer’s stock has risen vertiginously of late. Park Hye Jin makes all her own beats, sing-rapping in a mixture of English and Korean; she sounds both box-fresh and jaded.

As on her previous EPs, Hye Jin continues to deal in simple melodies, in lyrics that double down on one central emotion, and an accomplished array of mainstream-plus-niche sounds. On I Need You, trap beats pair with beatific piano, for instance. Although the dominant mood is bedroom-dreamy, the effect of her staccato choruses and slapping beats is hammeringly percussive, allying her with the hyper-pop of Charli XCX.

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by Kitty Empire via Electronic music | The Guardian