Waltz Into a Whimsical Fairytale With BIBI’s “Bam Yang Gang”

BIBI’s latest single, Bam Yang Gang is a romantic treat that came out on February 13, just in time for Valentine’s Day, but can be enjoyed any other time of the year. A sweet and dreamy waltz, with a fairytale atmosphere further emphasized by the video (released on the same day), but whose lyrics tell a different story. The single album also includes another tune, “Sugar Rush” - but more on that later.

Let’s start with the title: “Bam Yang Gang” (밤양갱) is the name of a traditional Korean dessert, a jelly made of red beans and chestnuts - if you ever walked around the aisles of a Korean supermarket, you might have spotted some.

This traditional dessert is presented as a comfort treat but we infer it also carries an ulterior meaning. The lyrics tell us of a breakup, hinting at a story where the woman was never fully understood by her partner. He thought of her as a high-demanding person, never realizing that the kind of thing she would have enjoyed the most would have been something simple and cheap as that chestnut-flavored jelly.

Maybe this makes it a bit more interesting to watch the music video, which is like a fantasy-short that opens with the break-up scene, starring none other than actor-singer-radio host and Kiha & The Faces frontman Chang Kiha, who also happens to be the one who wrote, arranged, and composed the song! Then the woman is alone and sad in her home at night, but as soon as she falls asleep she’s visited by a witch (and, guess what, is BIBI again!), who takes her into her whimsical realm, so that they can cook the Bam Yang Gang together - with the ubiquitous and friendly mice helping out. If the song is a delight on its own, we believe it gets harder to stop humming along once you’ve seen the video - and [spoiler!] she finally gets to eat that chestnut jelly in the end.

BIBI, whose real name is Kim Hyeongseo (김형서), has wowed audiences with her first stint in a K-drama, The Worst of Evil (2023), where she starred along with Ji Changwook and Wi Hajoon, and always last year she starred in two movies (Phantom, and Hopeless). The double single “Bam Yang Gang” is BIBI’s first release in six months, since Hongdae R&B (홍대 R&B) in August 2023, and the singer-writer-actress imagines it as a new chapter of a series that she described as “the beginning of the era of love.”

As anticipated, in the single album “Bam Yang Gang” we also find another song, “Sugar Rush”. We’re still in the glucose realm, but the flavor of this tune is different - we’d say there’s quite some spice in this one. Opening with an ever-accelerating heartbeat, it then breaks into a slow, pulsating rhythm that perfectly compliments the tone of the lyrics: “I'm sweet like candy/ You could look don't touch/ Don't try to get handsy/ You get sugar rush”. Fun fact: if you get hooked on the rap stanzas of the song, just know that BIBI launched a challenge about the second verse on her Instagram, so you could try your hand at it!

We don’t know yet what other treat awaits us with the video for “Sugar Rush,” which is expected to be released on the twentieth - but BIBI has us eagerly waiting now!