The 2020s File Feature
That That
That That — PSY and SUGA Throw a Homecoming Party A Return Nobody Saw Quite Like This Nine years after Gangnam Style made PSY the first YouTube phenomenon to…
01 The Story
That That — PSY and SUGA Throw a Homecoming Party
A Return Nobody Saw Quite Like This
Nine years after Gangnam Style made PSY the first YouTube phenomenon to crack the billion-view barrier and turned him into a global shorthand for Korean pop's commercial potential, he came back with something nobody expected: a collaborative single with SUGA of BTS, one of the most influential figures in a Korean music industry that had evolved beyond recognition since PSY's reign. The May 2022 release of That That was not merely a comeback; it was a generational handshake between two very different eras of Korean music's international story.
PSY After Gangnam Style
The weight of a billion-view song is a strange thing to carry. Gangnam Style had been a genuine cultural event in 2012: a comedy-inflected, satirical take on Seoul's nouveau-riche culture that became, through the peculiar alchemy of viral media, the song everyone on the planet seemed to know simultaneously. But that kind of ubiquitous fame tends to be a ceiling rather than a platform. PSY continued making music in South Korea with considerable commercial success domestically, but the global appetite for more after such an extraordinary one-off was difficult to satisfy. That That, a decade later, came with different expectations and a different collaborator.
SUGA's Production Touch and the Chart Moment
SUGA contributed to That That as both a performer and as a producer, under his production alias Agust D. His involvement brought an immediate credibility boost from the massive BTS fanbase and added a contemporary production sensibility to what might otherwise have been a nostalgia exercise. The song debuted on the Billboard Hot 100 on May 14, 2022, landing at number 80, its peak position, and spent one week on the chart. The brief Hot 100 presence was supplemented by strong performance on the Hot Dance/Electronic Songs chart and robust global streaming numbers; 620 million YouTube views accumulated around the music video, a figure that speaks to how thoroughly the BTS army and PSY's existing fanbase mobilized around the release.
The Sound: Playful and Deliberate
The production of That That was recognizably PSY in its energy: punchy, slightly over-the-top, built around a dance groove that invited participation rather than passive listening. SUGA's production contributions added contemporary texture without overriding the playful sensibility that had always been PSY's calling card. The music video, which featured elaborate choreography and a visual aesthetic that read as Western-influenced while remaining distinctly Korean in its humor and excess, performed the same cultural code-switching that Gangnam Style had pioneered. The song wasn't trying to be solemn or artistically challenging; it was trying to be a good time, and it succeeded.
What the Collaboration Said About K-pop's Evolution
The juxtaposition of PSY and SUGA in a single track illustrated something interesting about how Korean popular music's global profile had changed in ten years. In 2012, Gangnam Style arrived in the West largely as an anomaly, a novelty item that escaped its context. By 2022, BTS had spent years performing at global award shows, topping charts in multiple countries, and building an infrastructure for Korean pop's international presence that was entirely different in scale and sophistication. PSY returning in this environment, through a collaboration with one of BTS's most creatively respected members, reframed his own legacy as part of a continuum rather than an isolated moment. The song documented that evolution simply by existing.
Let the chorus pull you onto your feet. It is precisely as fun as it sounds, and that is entirely the point.
“That That” — PSY Featuring SUGA's singular moment on the 2020s charts.
02 Song Meaning
The Meaning Behind That That by PSY Featuring SUGA
Confidence, Swagger, and the Art of Not Taking Yourself Too Seriously
PSY's entire artistic identity has been built on a particular kind of self-aware bravado: a figure who celebrates himself extravagantly while maintaining enough ironic distance to let the audience in on the joke. That That operates in this same register. The central lyrical posture is one of confidence and presence, of someone declaring their own significance and demanding that the listener pay attention. But the delivery, the production, and the visual context all wink at the performer's self-awareness; this is celebration that knows it is slightly absurd, and is more enjoyable for knowing it.
SUGA's Perspective and the Collaboration's Chemistry
SUGA's contribution to the song adds a different emotional register alongside PSY's theatrical swagger. The BTS rapper and producer has built his solo creative identity around a more introspective approach to confidence: earned through work, grounded in awareness of difficulty, expressed with a kind of controlled intensity rather than PSY's more comedic extravagance. The collision of these two sensibilities gives That That a texture that neither artist could have generated alone. The song plays their contrasts for entertainment but also manages, in its better moments, to suggest something genuine about the relationship between self-assertion and self-knowledge.
Korean Identity and Global Playfulness
One of the things PSY has always done well is articulate something specifically Korean for an international audience without either exoticizing it or sanding down its particularity. Gangnam Style was a satire of a specific Seoul neighborhood's culture that traveled globally because satire of pretension is a universal language. That That operates less specifically, but it carries the same quality of cultural confidence: this is music made by Korean artists for Korean sensibilities that doesn't ask an international audience for permission. The assurance that produces that quality is itself partly what the song is celebrating.
Generational Dialogue in Korean Pop
There is a meaningful generational gap between PSY and SUGA, representing different eras of Korean music's international trajectory. PSY's moment was pre-streaming, pre-YouTube-as-primary-distribution-channel, a viral phenomenon before that concept had its current infrastructure. SUGA operates in a world where Korean artists have built sustained global followings through years of consistent engagement rather than a single viral moment. Their collaboration is implicitly a conversation between those two approaches to international success: the lightning-strike and the long game. That That doesn't resolve the comparison; it simply acknowledges that both paths led somewhere significant.
Why the Fun Matters
Critical discourse around popular music sometimes undervalues the genuine achievement of making something that is purely, straightforwardly enjoyable. That That aspires to little beyond being a well-made, high-energy, entertaining record, and it hits that target cleanly. In a cultural moment often characterized by anxiety and fragmentation, the offer of uncomplicated pleasure has its own value. PSY has always understood that the capacity to make a room full of strangers dance together is not a minor gift; it is one of the things music does best, and it is what this song, with SUGA's considerable assistance, set out to do.
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