South Korean rapper Psy will gave a free concert in Seoul, capping a stunning month in which his hit “Gangnam Style” has stormed global charts and made the chubby 34-year-old a national hero. Around 50,000 fans turn out for the show in front of the capital’s City Hall that streamed live to an international audience via YouTube — the forum that launched him to stardom in the first place. The video to “Gangnam Style”, featuring Psy’s much-imitated horse-riding dance, went viral after its July release on the Google-owned video sharing site, where it has now notched up more than 350 million views. Almost overnight, Psy was transformed into South Korea’s best-known cultural export, succeeding where the manufactured girl and boy bands of the homegrown “K-pop” phenomenon have failed by breaking into the US market. Despite being sung almost entirely in Korean, the song is currently top of the British charts and number two on the US Billboard’s Hot 100 chart. During a hugely successful US promotional tour last month, Psy made a guest appearance at the MTV awards in Los Angeles, taught his signature dance to Britney Spears, and was given a cameo role on NBC’s “Saturday Night Live.” His horse-riding moves have been imitated, parodied and referenced in pretty much every conceivable context.
