If you ever wanted more djent in your K-pop and have a healthy disdain for Suno AI slop, Roman Arsafes, a multi-instrumentalist from Yerevan, Armenia, seemingly has you covered. He's gone viral as of late for his covers of songs from BTS' comeback album Arirang, and his latest creation is one for the hip hop-inspired "Hooligan."
He took vocal stems from the original track and redid the instrumentals in his own image, blending orchestral swells, the odd black metal section, and lots of chugging guitars. I didn't know I needed blast beats with my Bangtan Sonyeondan, but I for one am not mad about it.
What I am mad about is that Arsafes has to explicitly say that this isn't AI-generated. With the rise of slop and the bubble yet to burst, the genuinely talented among us have to stress that they've done their jobs without any performance-enhancing substances. Arsafes did put up a 3-hour production stream showing his process, so there's that, at least.
Now I understand how baseball felt in the mid-Aughts.
Check out the "Hooligan" cover below, as well as its production stream:
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