This June 19, 2022 photo shows Korean American K-pop star AleXa performing onstage before a red carpet event for the film 'Top Gun: Maverick' in Seoul. AFP PHOTO
AgriTech | Global talent trained in Korea: K-pop’s latest plan to take over the world | Experts say that South Korea’s music industry is now a hotbed of talent from all over the world, from Indian K-pop idols to Swedish songwriters. This is because South Korea wants to be the best in the world.
Non-Koreans have been a part of K-pop bands for a long time. Lisa of Blackpink is Thai, Japan and China are well-represented, and Korean-American singers have topped the charts in Korea.
But now that K-pop is known around the world thanks to stars like Psy and BTS, the entertainment agencies in South Korea that are behind almost all of the popular groups are looking for new members in other places.
Only two of the six girls in DR Music’s girl group Blackswan are from South Korea. Last month, the group got its first Indian “idol” to join its Brazilian and Senegalese members.
AleXa, a Korean-American K-pop singer, just won the American Song Contest on NBC, which is like Eurovision in the US. She sang in English, but the training she got in Seoul set her apart.
South Korea’s entertainment agencies look for raw talent at open castings or through online audition tapes. They then get to work.
The bosses at ZB Label, which is part of the industry powerhouse Zanybros and has made thousands of K-pop music videos, are “always thinking about what’s next for K-pop.” Foss said.
They signed AleXa because they think she has the “full package” and thought that, as a young Korean-American, she could appeal to the growing number of people around the world who like K-pop.
AleXa has been dancing since she was 2 years old, but she said the training was still hard.
“Every day of the week, I worked out. Every day, I went to dance class, “AleXa, who grew up in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and also cheered for years in competitions, said the same thing.
“I had weekly evaluations, which is a big deal in the K-pop industry,” she said, explaining that trainees perform for company staff to see how they are doing.
After working for “months and months and months,” her bosses thought she was ready to “debut” as a real star.
In K-pop, the idea of an artist’s debut is very important, and styling, staging, and filming are done with a lot of care.
“Concept and execution are very, very important,” said AleXa, whose songs are written in Sweden but produced in Seoul with a US audience and global YouTube views in mind.
“Try to get it right”
K-pop recruiters are spreading out all over the world. For example, BTS’s agency, Hybe, holds auditions in cities like London, Bangkok, Sydney, and Tokyo. At the same time, talented people from all over the world are moving to South Korea.
Iyanu Anderson, who is 24 years old, first heard K-pop when she was a teenager in the UK, where she went to college to study Korean before moving to Seoul. She now dances, acts, and models for a living.
Anderson, who has been in a Samsung commercial with BTS and danced as a backup dancer at three of their concerts in Seoul in March, said, “I’d love to be trained.”
“But to debut as an artist, I’m not sure,” she told AFP, citing the huge amount of pressure, scrutiny, and work that K-pop idols have to do.
Even as a back-up dancer, Anderson said, “there is some pressure because when we’re shooting a commercial, they want everything to be perfect.”
“Sometimes we shoot for hours and hours, and then we notice that something isn’t right. And then everything changes, “she said.
Assistant professor at the University of Toronto Michelle Cho said that it is “quite hard” for foreign performers to fit into the fast-paced K-pop scene.
She also said that the industry itself is having to change in order to attract the best people from all over the world.
Cho said that K-pop managers “pay attention to the styles and looks of pop culture or youth culture…in a lot of different places.”
She said that if they can find different kinds of actors and train them to be stars, “that can only be good” for the industry and its prospects around the world.
