These MNET survival shows are getting out of hand because I didn’t even know Unpretty Rapstar: HIP POP Princess existed until I heard about the group spawned from it. H//PE Princess is scheduled to make their full debut soon but they’re testing the waters with pre-release Stolen, which arrives in its Japanese/Korean/English version before the full Korean hits next month. The lines between music markets are blurring and blurring and then some!
I’m curious to see how this all pans out. Hip-hop girl groups are nothing new in K-pop, but similar acts (Young Posse) have struggled to gain a foothold in the market. Of course, they don’t have MNET’s substantial power behind them, which will almost certainly give H//PE Princess a head start. As a song, Stolen isn’t ‘bowl-you-over’ ear-catching, but it’s a pleasant take on a funky hip-hop sound. It’s quite limited where ideas are concerned, as it feels like the main hook repeats about two hundred times throughout the song’s nearly three minute runtime. It’s not necessarily an irritating hook, but it does grow tiresome pretty quickly.
More than anything, Stolen needs an extra musical highlight to offer a counterpoint to the loose, cavernous groove that drives the track. It’ll be interesting to see if their eventual title track can strike a better balance.
| Hooks | 7 |
| Production | 8 |
| Longevity | 7 |
| Bias | 8 |
| RATING | 7.5 |
Grade: C
The Bias List // K-Pop Reviews & Discussion 
I am going to pronounce their name “Hippee”.
Sounds like this are a dime a dozen these days. Is anyone getting traction debuting with this sound?
(Besides perhaps Katseye which has many other things going for them, more arrows in their quiver. Among them, shaking their booties real hard in highly decorative and scanty stage clothing while selling the shit out of shitty songs at Coachella. Seriously, they almost made me like their songs from their performance.)
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katseye are good performers, but hxg should stop releasing those trash music only for charts and TikTok challenges, they are ruining these girls’ reputation.
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I don’t disagree. I feel like they are being marketed as the Spice Girls of the current contemporary Tik Tok gestalt.
However, I am old enough to recognize that popular success is real hard to come by, and even though I can’t stand their songs myself, I can acknowledge that there are groups of people who will pay good money to see them shake their booties and how. Clearly they have lots of stans, even with the Manon fallout.
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the whole song is based on only one funky, groovy, hypnotizing lead, but clearly too weak to support, I am glad that it is only a pre-release.
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Keyveatz from AOMG another hip hop girl group also release their MV Key Beats on the same day.
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this may be viewed as a mean analogy but this genre is alway floating, unchild is doing something similar in delivery. and its underwhelming as they’re kids. The baggy clothes, remind me of when I played in my mother’s closet and makeup as a kid. Voices are looks are still developing and most groups are reduced to sing-talk or yelling. Cortis is doing something similar but the boys are involved in the production and flying directly to the source (LA) regularly.
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the production is great and chill, then you have vocals like nails on a chalkboard. Genuinely, who actually listens to this? Just give me the instrumental and I’m good
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I think the performers actually do this song’s vocals a great disservice, and I’m normally pretty forgiving in that regard. However, the song is still a bit half-baked… good ideas but lackluster execution.
I’d give this 7,8,6,6 = 6.75
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