Review: K-Pop's Summer Jam Has Arrived, 'I Can Give' By Leo Kekoa Featuring YDG And Ye Eun Of Wonder Girls Gets Your Party Started [AUDIO]

I close my eyes and I can see it--a summer music festival with just the right temperature and just the right vibe.

Lee Hyori is headlining and Philtre opened the show, mesmerizing the crowd with "Fade," his recent collaboration with vocalist Younha.

Kim Seul Ki performs a rare rock set, with a really tasteful band. Baek ji Young gets the dance floor popping with her 80s electro-dance and disco might.

And there in the middle of it, in the late afternoon sun, would be Lee Kekoa performing his new hit "I Can Give" by Leo Kekoa featuring Ye Eun of Wonder Girls  and rapper YDG.

To call "I Can Give" a summer jam is like calling DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince's "Summertime" or the Doves song "Catch The Sun" a summer jam-a grossly inadequate label.

"I Can Give" is a summer anthem, complete with a hot beat, an original laid-back flow on the part of Leo Kekoa and YDG and some tasteful singing from the Wonder Girls singer.

Kekoa, like the artists listed at the imaginary festival described above defy everything the average American associates with K-pop.

Psy's wackiness, the physical conformity of girl groups like Girls' Generation, the safely sanitized lyrics, (a contrast to the raunchy anything-goes style of most Western pop music) these paradigms don't apply to the artists that would be on this hypothetical bill.

Leo Kekoa, like Lee Hyori and the other K-pop innovators mentioned above seem to be driven to make top-notch pop music.

These artists are just plain cool.

Can we call the movement Cool K-pop? Like Miles Davis was called cool jazz?

CK-pop? We're open to suggestions.

And although Kekoa's new single barely cracked the Billboard K-pop top 40 this week, debuting at number 39, to hear it is to become hooked.

Any fans of dance floor innovation would be well advised to root for a strong chart performance from "I Can Give."

It is simply a more interesting jam than most of the songs that scored higher positions.

And what about this imaginary festival?

Some innovator in the world of international promotion needs to realize that Lee Kekoa and his Cool K-pop company (ahem) are all artists with tremendous untapped crossover potential in the U.S.

Let's do it in New York City!

In the case of any theoretical Kekoa crossover, he does appear to have the additional international edge of speaking flawless English.

But there is something special about the flow of both Kekoa and YDG when they are rapping in Korean.

There are traces of Nas's delivery, Jay-Z's laidback attack, but like the production on "I Can Give," Kekoa and YDG have a sound that is distinctly Korean in all the best ways.

Check out "I Can Give" by Leo Kekoa featuring YDG And Ye Eun of Wonder Girls RIGHT HERE

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Leo Kekoa
I Can Give
Wonder Girls
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