Norazo’s Jo Bin Issues Apology For “Curry” And Asks Fans Not To Criticize SEVENTEEN
Norazo‘s Jo Bin has issued an apology for their group song “Curry”, ten years after it’s release.
A few days ago, a controversy regarding SEVENTEEN‘s Wonwoo singing a few seconds of “Curry” erupted, and left fans extremely angry about the song’s racist stereotyping of Indian culture. Along with criticizing Norazo for the song, anger was also directed towards Wonwoo for singing the song in the first place.
The lyrics of the song they covered. This is an ugly mess. Read it and try to tell me this isn't racist. pic.twitter.com/XR35Bf6tst
— miku⁷ (@jjkooromi) July 21, 2016
The controversy eventually reached Norazo’s Jo Bin, the original singer-songwriter of the song, and he uploaded an apology to his official Instagram account.
He began by trying to explain that Norazo as a group were not racist, and also claimed that he had no idea of the connotations that the word “curry” carries for Indians, and did not believe his actions to be wrong at the time.
Norazo are not racist and do not insult religions! I’ve heard from people of Indian descent today that curry is not a part of real Indian food. The reason why I ended up working on the song without checking the facts was because I lived in Korea while knowing false information about the history of curry, so I was taught to think, “Curry is Indian food!” As a result, I did not realize what the words I used to express India as a homeland actually meant and how sacred they were! This was surely my mistake!
—Norazo’s Jo Bin
He then apologized for his lack of knowledge on the matter, and hoped that fans and netizens would stop criticizing their hoobae group SEVENTEEN for Norazo’s mistake.
From now on, we’ll be sure to be singers who make and sing songs with proper information! We apologize to people of India and Southern Asia who were hurt by this! And lastly, just like us, our hoobae singers didn’t know it could be conveyed that way!
We hope that this song, which was ignorant about another country’s tradition, will not hurt our hoobae singers who are on their world tour while loving the fans and cultures of other countries!
—Norazo’s Jo Bin
He further explained his intentions in his caption, and in both Korean and English, he wrote:
The writing I wrote is not intended to encourage disputes.
I wanted everyone to be comfortable.
Sorry. You have no choice but to close the feedback window. The opinion window can be a place of controversy with each other!
May everyone see us with understanding and love.
We will definitely grow in a good direction!
—Norazo’s Jo Bin
Read the whole apology here:
Norazo are not racist and do not insult religions! I’ve heard from people of Indian descent today that curry is not a part of real Indian food. The reason why I ended up working on the song without checking the facts was because I lived in Korea while knowing false information about the history of curry, so I was taught to think, “Curry is Indian food!” As a result, I did not realize what the words I used to express India as a homeland actually meant and how sacred they were! This was surely my mistake!
All we wanted to do was let it be known that curry is a delicious food that anybody can enjoy through our Norazo style! I want to say that we didn’t write the song with the intent to put anyone down or cut down the culture or tradition of a precious country!
From now on, we’ll be sure to be singers who make and sing songs with proper information! We apologize to people of India and Southern Asia who were hurt by this! And lastly, just like us, our hoobae singers didn’t know it could be conveyed that way!
We hope that this song, which was ignorant about another country’s tradition, will not hurt our hoobae singers who are on their world tour while loving the fans and cultures of other countries!
—Norazo’s Jo Bin
Norazo’s “Curry” was released in 2010, and following Wonwoo’s controversy, this is the first time that the controversial nature of the song has been addressed.
As there have been repeated controversies regarding artists and their appropriation of cultures, most recently Indian, fans hope that there will be no more instances like this, and demand for more respect towards all cultures.
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