Hip hop first appeared in Korea in the 1990s with rappers such as Seo Taiji and DJ Doc. But the title of first rapper should probably go to Kim Byeong-yeon aka Kim Sat-gat aka Kim Lip aka Rainhat Poet, who was spitting rhymes and battling poets all over the peninsula way back in the day -- the mid-1800s. The life of Rainhat was given respect in the first rap song in Korea, Hong Seo-bum's "Kim Sat-gat" from 1989.

A twenty-year-old Kim Byeong-yeon, after learning that he disrespected his grandfather in a poem, left his mother, wife, and child, put on a reed rain hat typically worn by farmers and fishermen, and began wandering the mountains of Korea. Reborn as the Rainhat poet, he spent his days and nights improvising songs, drinking rice wine, partying with other poets, flirting with young farm girls, satirizing the wealthy, mentoring other poets and praising the mountain spirits. His story is dramatized in The Life of a Rainhat Poet by Tae Hung Ha (Yonsei University Press, 1988).