South Korean rapper Lil Cherry, aka Mukkbang Mama, on working with her brother Goldbuuda and how her song ‘Crying in da Club’ was partly inspired by Lucy Liu’s character in Charlie’s Angels
The poet-turned-rapper tells Style about seeing Flo Rida perform in high school, and how All Eggs in the Basket is not just the name of her upcoming release but a mantra for life
“Do you remember Apple Bottom Jeans?” South Korean rapper Lil Cherry asks me as we speak over a video call, two weeks after the release of her single “Crying in da Club”, a dizzying electronica headbanger that doubles as a cathartic release for her.
“Before Flo Rida blew up with that song [“Low” feat. T-Pain], he came to my middle school and performed,” the 28-year-old tells me.
We’re 20 minutes into our video call and I’m struck by how disarming Lil Cherry is, especially given that when I initially sat down for the interview, I was jittery with anticipation. I’ve been a fan of Cherry’s music since she released her 2021 single “Mukkbang!”, a song referencing the viral online phenomenon originating from South Korea of people eating copious amounts of food on cam. The song’s virality on social media platforms like TikTok earned her the moniker Mukkbang Mama.
There’s something about Lil Cherry that makes you take an immediate liking to her – maybe I’m biased as a fan – but the ease and openness with which she talks and her eagerness to add to our conversation make the next 40 minutes fly by. Her accent – a delightful hybrid formed in all the cities she’s lived in: Miami, New York and Seoul – is an added quirk.
Born in South Korea and raised in the US, Lil Cherry and her older brother Goldbuuda broke out into the South Korean music scene with their debut single “Motorola” in 2018.
“Motorola” was born when Lil Cherry, a poetry student at New York University, returned to Seoul over winter break to find that her brother had turned his room into a studio and was practising music production.
“He sat me down and he told me to try and freestyle on one of those beats. So I took out all the poems that I was writing in school for class. I chose, at that time, a love poem that I thought fit the beat really well and so I just started adding melodies to it.”
Having since released three full-length albums, “Motorola” was not only a career-defining song for Lil Cherry, but also a kind of spiritual awakening.
