Talk:Cycadelic Records

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Bunnypranav talk 13:20, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

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• Comment or view
• Article history

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• ... that a North Korean refugee became the "godfather of gangsta rap" by selling records at the Compton Swap Meet?

• Source: Wan Joon Kim didn't intend to become the godfather of gangsta rap; in the beginning, his son Kirk says, he just wanted to support his family. Kim escaped North Korea on a fishing boat, [...]

• • Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Line of Duty

Moved to mainspace by Vigilantcosmicpenguin (talk). Number of QPQs required: 1. Nominator has 26 past nominations.

— Vigilant Cosmic Penguin 🐧 (talk | contribs) 01:25, 12 January 2025 (UTC).

• New enough (created Jan 12). Long enough (4,712 characters). Contains a dozen refs mostly from major media outlets, two scholarly articles. The hook is short enough and interesting and is supported by an NPR article, but there's a small inconsistency in whether Wan Joon Kim was an immigrant or a refugee. The article does not call him a refugee, but the hook does. This needs to be addressed. QPQ done. Sadly no images. --Երևանցի ^talk 16:27, 12 January 2025 (UTC)
  • The article says that he "fled the country" (as the source says he "escaped North Korea"), which I would consider to mean the same thing as being a refugee. However, I'd be fine with changing the phrasing in the hook:

ALT0a: ... that a North Korean immigrant became the "godfather of gangsta rap" by selling records at the Compton Swap Meet?

— Vigilant Cosmic Penguin 🐧 (talk | contribs) 18:40, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

That makes sense. I guess escaped/fled the country does equal to being a refugee, especially considering it's North Korea. I'm okay with both refugee and immigrant. --Երևանցի ^talk 08:28, 13 January 2025 (UTC)

GA review

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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This review is transcluded from Talk:Cycadelic Records/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Nominator: Vigilantcosmicpenguin (talk · contribs) 19:51, 29 January 2025 (UTC)

Reviewer: Kingsacrificer (talk · contribs) 18:45, 19 October 2025 (UTC)

Summary: Ideally, a quickfail. Too much focus on Kim as the subject instead of the Swap Meet. Will wait for @Vacant0 to share his opinion.

1. Well-written

• This article focuses more on Wan Joon Kim than Compton Swap meet.
• Lead section should not focus on Kim as much.
• History section can be subdivided for better structuring.

• I have divided it so the first two paragraphs have the heading "Background". (This will make more sense if we move the page to "Cycadelic Records", as I propose below.) — Vigilant Cosmic Penguin 🐧 (talk | contribs) 19:45, 21 October 2025 (UTC)

• Some stylistic choices can be improved. For example, Kim died on March 13, 2013, from a cancer

• Done.

2. Verifiable

Note: Only made spot checks.

• The line Kim became known as the "godfather of gangsta rap". is not supported by either of the cited sources. The first source doesn't even mention it, the second mentions it as a negative (Wan Joon Kim didn't intend to become the godfather of gangsta rap.

• I have changed the sentence to Kim has been called the "godfather of gangsta rap" by The Los Angeles Times and NPR. Both sources use the phrase to describe him, so I think this should be an accurate phrasing. — Vigilant Cosmic Penguin 🐧 (talk | contribs) 19:45, 21 October 2025 (UTC)

• Citing A wholesaler suggested he sell the R&B;, gospel, funk and rap coming from New York, though he eventually developed an ear for black music as A music wholesaler recommended that Kim sell African-American music such as hip-hop. may be a bit of a stretch.

• Changed African-American music such as hip hop to genres such as rap, although I personally don't think it's too much of a stretch, as the source you quote indicates the relevance of these genres as "black music". — Vigilant Cosmic Penguin 🐧 (talk | contribs) 19:45, 21 October 2025 (UTC)

• Not all archived links are displaying the articles fully.

• Removed the archive link that doesn't work.

3. Broad in its coverage

• Too much focus on Kim (WP:DUE) and much lesser focus on the Swap meet itself. I suggest creating a new page for Kim and his life story, and only have a passing mention in this article.

• @Kingsacrificer and Vacant0: This article discusses Kim as the person who sold things at the Compton Swap Meet. There should not be a separate article about him, per WP:NOPAGE—all of the sources about him are in the context of the Compton Swap Meet, making it the sole reason for his notability. This article contains pretty much all of the information about both him and the store. (The store itself is mostly, but not entirely, discussed in the context of Kim's business.) However, I understand your concern that this page is nominally about a building but spends too much time describing a person. I suggest a different solution: the article could be moved to the title "Cycadelic Records". That way, the information about Kim would be background about the founder of the company, and the information about the Compton Swap Meet would be background about where the company operated. — Vigilant Cosmic Penguin 🐧 (talk | contribs) 19:45, 21 October 2025 (UTC)

That would be a good solution to this. Vacant0 (talk • contribs) 20:24, 21 October 2025 (UTC)

That sounds good. I will mark this GAN as a fail now, and wait for you to create that article. Although, in that case, giving Compton Swap Meet too much of a mention could also be problematic. Kingsacrificer (talk) 06:33, 22 October 2025 (UTC)

• Not enough is said about the other vendors of the swap meet.

• I have added the name of one of the founders of the swap meet, and some more general information about the makeup of the market. Besides this, sources have virtually no information about other vendors. — Vigilant Cosmic Penguin 🐧 (talk | contribs) 19:45, 21 October 2025 (UTC)

• Several rappers have referenced the Compton Swap Meet in their songs: You mention Kendrick Lamar for this, but nobody else. Could be worth it to name some other artists.

• Added.

4. Neutral

No issues with Neutrality as such.

5. Stable

No edit wars seen.

6. Illustrated

An image of the building, or any store, especially of that time would be a great resource. Have you considered requesting the same on Wikimedia Commons? Kingsacrificer (talk) 19:32, 20 October 2025 (UTC)

Hmm... Sources do not seem to be an issue, they're all reliable per WP:RSP. Grammatical and MOS issues could be quickly fixed. But yeah, most of the article actually discusses Kim, rather than the history of Compton Swap Meet. I'd suggest creating a new article for Kim and then trimming this article so that it mostly covers Compton Swap Meet. It's up to you whether you want to quickfail it or not. Maybe we should wait for the nominator to respond and to see what they think about this? I'm not sure. Vacant0 (talk • contribs) 12:42, 21 October 2025 (UTC)

Sure!

@Vigilantcosmicpenguin waiting for your response. Kingsacrificer (talk) 17:42, 21 October 2025 (UTC)

@Vacant0: Starting on this review. Currently reading through the article, will try to collate my thoughts soon.

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Page moved

Per the discussion at Talk:Compton Swap Meet/GA1, I have moved this page from "Compton Swap Meet" to "Cycadelic Records". Pinging the reviewers @Kingsacrificer and @Vacant0. After moving the page, I have rephrased the lead. I have still kept the infobox about the building, but I have moved it to the history section as the building is defunct; I think this makes sense as the location of the building is useful information, so let me know if you disagree. Also, let me know how to move forward with this; should I re-nominate the page under the new title? — Vigilant Cosmic Penguin 🐧 (talk | contribs) 07:23, 22 October 2025 (UTC)

Yeah feel free to re-nominate. Vacant0 (talk • contribs) 10:50, 22 October 2025 (UTC)

GA review

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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This review is transcluded from Talk:Cycadelic Records/GA2. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Nominator: Vigilantcosmicpenguin (talk · contribs) 03:04, 23 October 2025 (UTC)

Reviewer: MCE89 (talk · contribs) 05:33, 1 February 2026 (UTC)

Good Article review progress box

Criteria: 1a. prose () 1b. MoS () 2a. ref layout () 2b. cites WP:RS () 2c. no WP:OR () 2d. no WP:CV () 3a. broadness () 3b. focus () 4. neutral () 5. stable () 6a. free or tagged images () 6b. pics relevant () Note: this represents where the article stands relative to the Good Article criteria. Criteria marked are unassessed

Hello, I'll review this. Will add my comments shortly. MCE89 (talk) 05:33, 1 February 2026 (UTC)

• @MCE89: I've responded to your comments. Thanks. — Vigilant Cosmic Penguin 🐧 (talk | contribs) 01:37, 3 February 2026 (UTC)
  • Looks good to me! Passing this now. MCE89 (talk) 08:20, 7 February 2026 (UTC)

Initial checks

• Images: Y No relevant free images available that I could find, but the map is a nice addition and is free
• Copyright: Y No issues apparent on Earwig. Will do further checks for close paraphrasing as part of my source spotchecks
• Stability and authorship: Y No issues

Prose review

This is very well-written, just a few small nitpicks:

• ...began one of the first to sell gangsta rap records... - Should be "...became one of the first..."
  • Fixed.
• officially Compton Fashion Center - Suggest changing to "officially the Compton Fashion Center"
  • I don't think this is necessary if "the" is not part of the official name itself. — Vigilant Cosmic Penguin 🐧 (talk | contribs) 01:37, 3 February 2026 (UTC)
• Kim, a North Korean defector... - I’m not sure I’ve heard people who left North Korea during the Korean war referred to as "defectors" before, since that's more often a term applied to those who left later (particularly from the 1990s onwards) - it might be more accurate to call him a war refugee, or just someone who fled North Korea during the Korean war?
  • Good point; I had the timeline wrong in my head. Changed to just "Korean", since that's the only part that's important enough for the lead. — Vigilant Cosmic Penguin 🐧 (talk | contribs) 01:37, 3 February 2026 (UTC)
• The vendor carried artists... - Suggest changing to "Kim carried artists" or "Kim’s stall carried artists"
  • Done.

Source review

• No concerns regarding source reliability
• It looks like there's a new paper that's been published since you nominated this that discusses Cycadelic Records and the Compton Swap Meet, so there may be information in that paper that's useful to include: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/00961442251378459
  • Thanks for pointing this out! I've expanded the article with info from this source. — Vigilant Cosmic Penguin 🐧 (talk | contribs) 01:37, 3 February 2026 (UTC)

Spot checks

This table checks 6 passages from throughout the article (20.7% of 29 total passages). These passages contain 7 inline citations (18.9% of 37 in the article). Generated with the Veracity user script. MCE89 (talk) 05:48, 1 February 2026 (UTC)

Reference #	Letter	Source	Archive	Status	Notes
It was the first indoor swap meet in Southern California.
1	c	latimes.com	web.archive.org
By 1987, the building had 300 vendors, 60% of which were owned by Koreans, selling a range of products and foods.
3	b	latimes.com
Kim was a fan of classical music and needed his daughter to help him understand the English used in gangsta rap songs, but he liked selling records of the genre.
2	c	npr.org	web.archive.org		Strictly speaking I think the source suggests that this should say daughters plural
1	h	latimes.com	web.archive.org
The vendor carried artists such as Ice Cube and Eazy-E, who formed the group N.W.A.
2	d	npr.org	web.archive.org
In the 1990s, the demographics of Compton shifted to have fewer Black people, and gangsta rap gained worldwide popularity. Cycadelic Records continued to sell music to people from across Southern California.
1	k	latimes.com	web.archive.org
Lamar featured the Compton Swap Meet building in his 2015 music video for "King Kunta", alongside other Compton locations. The video briefly shows Lamar dancing on the roof of the building.
7	e	latimes.com	web.archive.org

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.