DJ Kigga: If you don't recognize the name, you might recognize the rap from Mina's debut album, My Inner Love. Kigga's rap was featured on Mina's R&B hit single, Dream Lover. Kigga's cuts are exemplary of the DJ work going on in the Korean-American hip hop scene right now. Born in Seoul, Kigga currently works out of Ann Arbor, Michigan, turning mostly hip hop tunes, but dabbling in whatever else sounds good to him. Kigga's sounds can be heard on his new album Enter the Dragon, a collection of his rap and DJ tracks.

The familiar song on the CD is Dream Lover [MP3], of course. This song is more Mina than Kigga, but it's still pretty tight. Their voices mix together quite nicely and the rap doesn't intrude on the R&B tone of the song. They should consider future collaborations.

You might expect the title track, Enter the Dragon [MP3] to sound like something out of a Bruce Lee movie, but instead it is a rapid-beat mix with some heavy rapping. Enter the Dragon is really more James Bond/Mission Impossible than karate/kung fu, despite the Korean rapping. This song shows the potential of DJ Kigga's MCing, but it's still a little rough along the edges.

G.Q. [RealAudio] may remind you of Will Smith in the way the lyrics are presented. If you recall the days of DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince (think "Girls Ain't Nothing But Trouble" and "Parents Just Don't Understand"), you might remember that Will Smith's rapping was always narrative. He wasn't just stringing mean sounds together, he was telling a story chapter by chapter. G.Q. has something of this quality, too. Obviously, it's not bouncy enough for early Will Smith, but I think there's some relation.

The most amusing thing about DJ Kigga's Do the DJ [RealAudio] is that the opening sounds exactly like The KLF on the American release of the White Room album; however, that coincidence is only funny if you know how many times The KLF were taken to task for copyright violations. Often, that's what Djing is all about, though--taking someone else's sounds and turning them into (hopefully) something new.

The gong at the beginning of Turn Over [MP3] (sample) made me think that this was the song that should be called "Enter the Dragon." This is a pretty funky piece of music with a good slow rap line. I like the groove and the female vocals really add to the song.

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