K-Pop
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BLACKPINK have two billion reasons to celebrate this week after the video for their 2019 No. 41 Billboard Hot 100 hit “Kill This Love” became the K-pop girl group’s second visual to cross the double billion mark. Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news “Kill This Love” now […]
BTS‘ RM will be the subject of the upcoming solo documentary, RM: Right People, Wrong Place. According to a release, the film directed by Lee Seokjun — who also produced BTS bandmate J-Hope’s videos for “Arson” and “MORE” — will take viewers “through Seoul, Tokyo, and London — cities where RM captured the essence of […]
Megan Thee Stallion and RM are collaborating on new music.
The 29-year-old Houston rapper announced through social media Sunday (Sept. 1) that she’s teaming up with the BTS star on the new song “Neva Play.” The collab drops on Friday, Sept. 6, and can be pre-saved on streaming services here.
“NEVA PLAY WITH RM OUT FRIDAY HOTTIES X ARMY #MEGJOON,” Megan captioned a promo drawing on Instagram of herself sporting blue hair and flashing cash while RM casually looks over his shoulder.
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She further teased in the post, “ps. This is one of my favorite RM verses I’ve heard! I’ve never heard him rap in this style before.”
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“Screaming!!!!!!!,” Halsey, who collaborated with BTS on “Boy With Luv” in 2019, wrote in the comments.
The “Hiss” rapper hinted at a new duet on X (formerly Twitter) earlier in the week, when she simply tweeted a pointed string of emojis: “🐎X💜 👀.” The cryptic post got lots of fans fired up, with some immediately guessing that the purple heart signified BTS’ involvement. The following day, BTS’ account confirmed the news of a team-up: “🐎X🦔(🐨),” the K-pop band wrote, retweeting her original post. “Coming Soon! 💜👀.”
The news arrives about two months after Megan Thee Stallion released her third album, Megan, which debuted at No. 3 on the Billboard 200. Meanwhile, BTS’ full-band activities have been on pause as the members fulfill their mandatory military obligations in South Korea, with some of the boys dropping solo projects in the meantime.
“Neva Play” won’t be the first time Meg has worked with members of BTS. In 2021, she jumped on the remix to the boy band’s Billboard Hot 100-topping single “Butter,” which they all performed together at BTS’ concert in Los Angeles that November.
“I love BTS, and I was telling my manager, ‘I really want to do a song with BTS, I don’t know what I can do or what we’re going to do,’” she recalled to Entertainment Tonight the following February. “Around that the same time, they wound up reaching out to me and asking me to do the ‘Butter’ remix. So, I was like, ‘Oh my God.’”
See Megan Thee Stallion’s post about her RM collab on Instagram below.
With millions of viewers around the world tuning in and casting votes for contestants in the K-pop survival show Boys Planet, contestants who didn’t make a place in the final band left the program with fans eager to see their next steps. No group perhaps better embraces such potential than EVNNE, the seven-member boy band […]
LE SSERAFIM is back! The group dropped a vibrant new music video for their single “CRAZY,” and as expected, it features some great outfits and even better dance moves. The song is featured on the group’s freshly released mini-album of the same name, Crazy. The project contains five tracks: the title track, “Chasing Lightning,” “Pierrot,” […]
When he was working on his just-released debut solo LP, J, NCT member Jaehyun was striving for a “classic” vibe with the hope that “as time passes by, you could still listen to the [whole] album,” the 27-year-old singer told The Hollywood Reporter. The eight-track collection available now on all streaming platforms includes the slinky […]
NCT‘s Jaehyun dropped the video for the first single from his just-released solo debut album, J – The First Album, which is available now digitally and on all streaming platforms. The singer also issued the focus track “Smoke” in English and Korean, a slinky R&B jam whose video finds the K-pop star battling an unseen […]
BTS‘ Suga issued another apology to ARMY over his recent drunk scootering incident in a handwritten note posted to Weverse on Sunday (August 25). According to a translation of the post, Suga, 31, said, “I would like to apologize again to you with shame. I deeply apologize for the disappointment and hurt of my misbehavior to my fans and everyone who loves me.I’ve made a big mistake, forgetting the responsibility to repay you with actions worthy of the love I’ve received.”
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He continued by describing the night in question (August 6), saying he made the mistake of driving on an electric scooter after drinking and apologizing for the “confusion” caused by his first, “hastily posted” apology on the day after the incident. “I should have thought more deeply and been careful, but I couldn’t,” he wrote.
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“It’s all my fault. My carelessness is giving everyone who cares about me a hard time. I will try not to do anything wrong again and live with repentance,” he added. “Due to this incident, I have greatly damaged the precious memories I made with the members and fans and put a lot of pressure on the name of the BTS. I feel so sorry and painful that it’s hard to express because it’s causing damage to the members and the team. I’m sorry that the members who always trusted me have a hard time because of me. And I know the disappointment that the fans who supported and supported me must have felt.”
The rapper had his license suspended after police said he operated the seated electric scooter while impaired in the Yongsan District in central Seoul, with a blood alcohol content above the 0.08 level that triggers license revocation. At the time, Suga said he didn’t realize he couldn’t drive the scooter while intoxicated, explaining that he felt comfortable making the trip because he was close to his apartment. According to Suga’s original account, he fell over while trying to ride the electric kickboard, which police observed, leading to a breathalyzer test.
BTS’ label BigHit also shared a pair of statements on Weverse at the time, noting that Suga was wearing a helmet and had only traveled about 500 meters before falling down while parking the scooter.
In the new statement, Suga also asked ARMY for forgiveness for letting them down. “I just feel sorry for the fans who have always given me too much love… I know that it is difficult to heal the wounds and disappointments that my fans have received with any words, so I regret it deeply and reflect on it with a heavy heart every day,” he said. “Once again, I sincerely apologize to the fans who were hurt by me. We will receive criticism and reprimand as well as future dispositions. Finally, once again, I sincerely apologize for causing a social stir and disappointing many people.”
At press time it did not appear that South Korean police had issued an official sanction yet to the BTS member over the incident, though Korean media reported that he “admitted” to the alleged DUI during three hours of police questioning last week.
Suga has less than a year left on his alternative mandatory South Korean military service; he was deemed unfit for regular combat duty due to a 2020 shoulder injury.
I’m not getting too stressed about bridge lyrics,” says Benjmn, 29. “Because there’s like a 100% chance it’s going to get translated.”
The Los Angeles-based topliner is closing in on his ninth straight hour of songwriting today. And like the 10 other lyricists and producers Universal Music Publishing Group has assembled at Arcade Studios in New York, he won’t stop until he’s achieved perfection. Benjmn, who has written for acts like ENHYPEN and Le Sserafim before, and his cohorts here are all proven K-pop hit-makers, so they’re well aware that much of today’s work will be rewritten in Korean. Still, he and his collaborators on this particular track — 31-year-old SAAY from South Korea and 34-year-old Sandra Wikstrom from Sweden — will continue fine-tuning their already pristine bridge for at least 15 more minutes before moving on. Are there enough syllables? Is it dragging? Can the melody be more expansive?
They know that the punchier the lyrics, the likelier it is that major K-pop labels like HYBE, JYP Entertainment and SM Entertainment will pick up their demos for artists to record. Their current target is a boy band on the rise that UMPG knows is looking for its next hit, although the track — a swaggering dance tune tentatively titled “GLUE” — may very well go to another of the ever-proliferating K-pop groups. (Because of the unpredictable nature of where songs end up and the prejudices a label may have if it sees a song title publicly attached to other acts, UMPG declines to comment on the precise artists for whom the musicians have gathered.)
The three rainy days these writers and producers will spend here mark just the second-ever international K-pop camp UMPG has held in the United States as it pushes to capitalize on the opportunities the genre offers its roster of talent, rounding up its most experienced creatives from all over the world and charging them with completing three songs a day in small groups. After the camp concludes, UMPG Korea senior creative A&R executive Yena Kim will pitch the nine finished tracks to the big three labels, which constantly send her hyperspecific briefs outlining what they’re looking for and for whom; for now, she walks from room to room ensuring everyone understands their assignments.
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“Ultimately, we want releases,” explains UMPG’s head of its global creative group, David Gray. “We can sign K-pop writers and say, ‘Go get us K-pop cuts.’ But we can also be proactive and creative. Let’s put our best K-pop writers together, bring them briefs from Korea and keep it small, focused and strategic so we have the best chance of getting results.”
Benjmn (left) records vocals for an R&B-inspired demo produced by Sam Klempner.
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Jeppe London (left) and Lauritz Emil work on a song with guitars.
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On day one of camp, delirium is already setting in. “We should do a song called ‘Jet Lag,’ ” Benjmn jokes before he, SAAY and Wikstrom start spitting out catchy rap bars seemingly effortlessly, despite their lack of sleep. “Jet lag, jet lag, gotta go get bags/All around the world, I’m getting whiplash,” they sing, taking turns adding lines.
Down the hall, 28-year-old BLVSH from Germany and London-based Josh McClelland, 27, are writing for the same boy band, penning a punk-rock heartbreak anthem called “Close the Door.” Producer duo Jeppe London, 28, and Lauritz Emil, 26, both from Denmark, speak in rapid-fire Danish while recording electric guitar passes to find a sweet spot between Demi Lovato and Linkin Park, both of whom label SM sent as references. The room’s shared credits include tracks for BTS, ENHYPEN, NCT and TWICE, and an expertise in the subtleties of writing for K-pop artists shows.
“You’re looking for fun keywords instead of poetic structure,” explains BLVSH, who earned a No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 last year for her work on Jimin’s “Like Crazy.” “It’s more [about] attention-grabbing visuals and hooky words.”
They also labor over how pleasing each syllable sounds, the cadence and differentiation of each line, whether the melodies will sit in the band members’ varying vocal ranges and how easily choreographers will be able to pair the lyrics with snappy dance moves — all elements they say they don’t necessarily think about when writing for other genres, as many of them started out writing outside K-pop. Phonetics are key, even if most lyrics do end up getting reworked by translators, who generally earn a 12.5% split in royalties when the song is finished; BLVSH and McClelland say Korean labels are more likely to bite when they can imagine from the get-go how a song will sound once translated, which is why the writers make sure to infuse their demos with sharp consonants to mimic the Korean language. (For example: Saying a love interest looks “picturesque” grabs their ears far more than a simple “pretty” or “good.”)
SAAY (left) listens to a demo while BLVSH tinkers on piano.
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Max Thulin produces a track in Logic Pro.
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It’s also why the writers focus less on storytelling and more on a certain vibe or attitude in their songs, which they strive to convey even when recording their demos. By nature, many of them are far less extroverted than the acts they write for, so it’s entertaining to watch Benjmn cringe as he listens to a take of himself singing with Justin Bieber-esque sultriness, or to see 31-year-old Feli Ferraro of Los Angeles intuitively flip her hair and pop her hips while recording sexy-confident raps for a song called “8” that’ll be sent off to a brand-new girl group SM is developing (the campers know nothing of its top-secret lineup).
The songwriters aren’t fazed when translators alter the meaning of their lyrics; they understand it’s an often necessary part of ensuring they still rhyme and flow well in Korean. Still, it’s always ideal artistically when their work stays as close to the original as possible — and there are ways of increasing the chances that it does: As McClelland puts it, “Let’s make sure this lyric is fire.”
Toward the end of the day, everyone takes a short break to mingle and eat dinner; last year, UMPG learned that the ever-diligent writers prefer bringing in meals to avoid taking time away from their songs, and tonight’s comes from Joe’s Home of Soup Dumplings. SAAY and Wikstrom excitedly make plans to visit the Times Square Disney store while they’re in town. But there’s minimal time for this kind of pleasant catchup. A mountain of empty plastic containers in their wake, everyone instinctively filters back into their respective rooms.
Most end up staying until 10 p.m. There’s more work to be done.
From a publisher’s perspective, everything changed for global K-pop in 2020. That’s when BTS earned its first Hot 100 No. 1 with “Dynamite” — and the genre “exploded, that’s for sure,” quips Daniella Rasho, international A&R executive at UMPG U.S., who oversees the camp alongside Yena Kim.
“People have seen what BTS has done,” she continues. “Now every K-pop label is like, ‘I’m going to have the next BTS. I’m going to have the next one that goes global or is on U.S. radio.’ ”
“[Korean] labels are aiming for hits on the Billboard charts,” Kim adds. “The artists, most of them now all speak English, as well as local A&Rs. The whole thing is changing. It wasn’t like this five to six years ago.”
As K-pop’s global reach has expanded, so too has foreign songwriters’ interest in the genre, which rapidly transformed from one of the least popular international markets for songwriters to one of the most competitive. It’s an appealing space: Western pop stars are often inclined to stick with the same close circle of collaborators, but K-pop labels are quite open to taking songs from outsiders. Thanks to K-pop fans’ propensity for buying multiple physical variants of singles and albums, the royalty checks for songwriters and producers tend to be higher, too.
Western stars like Taylor Swift have also prioritized writing their own music, while K-pop fans value the glossy, high-production performances their idols have spent years training to execute more than the names on a song’s billing, allowing more space for career songwriters to notch credits. Rasho has a theory as to why: “American audiences want to relate to pop stars. For K-pop, people want to be them.”
Front row, from left: Jeppe London, Celine Svanback, Feli Ferraro, Benjmn and Max Thulin. Middle row, from left: Sandra Wikstrom, SAAY, Sam Klempner and BLVSH. Back row: Josh McClelland (left) and Lauritz Emil.
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SAAY (left) with Sandra Wikstrom who reads lyrics off her phone.
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Plus, the campers say that K-pop labels are in some ways more forgiving than their Western counterparts. They’re used to receiving detailed feedback on their demos and getting ample opportunity to rewrite or add parts to a song, and Ferraro explains that some will “Frankenstein” pieces of different submissions together to achieve the desired result. “They’ll find a home for it,” says the Connecticut native, who co-wrote “Run BTS” and Le Sserafim’s “Unforgiven.” “It doesn’t feel like you’re wasting your time at all.”
Seeing the many opportunities K-pop presents for its roster, UMPG has sprung into action over the past few years organizing writing sessions all over the world. Kim handpicked each creative at this year’s camp based not just on skill, but also on who would be most suited to the song briefs at hand — “Specific labels like some writing styles more than others,” Rasho explains — and who would get along best as collaborators.
Figuring out the latter is an art in itself. At last year’s camp, Gray recalls that “there were tears” during a creative dispute over a song that would turn out to be TWICE soloist NAYEON’s “Something.” It ended up being one of the most high-profile releases the inaugural camp created, with the EP it was on, NA, reaching No. 1 on Billboard’s Top Album Sales chart in June.
Next, Kim tailored small groups around who could best match the demands of the individual briefs, which reflect just how tuned in to global trends K-pop labels are. JYP requested a solo song akin to Tate McRae’s “Greedy” for a member of one of its girl groups, while others cited Sabrina Carpenter’s “Espresso,” Chappell Roan, Caroline Polachek and Charli xcx’s brat as references.
K-pop’s sonic evolution is a big reason why UMPG’s approach, gathering writers from all over the world, works so well. Swedish and British producers like Max Thulin, 30, and Sam Klempner, respectively, “bring their experimental, cool sounds,” while Germans are masters of “fun, electronic pop,” Rasho says.
“The U.S. writers come and do their rap thing — they have that swagger,” she continues. “They bring out something new and different in each other. They bring the best of their territories, too.”
Celine Svanback records vocals for a girl-group demo.
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Celine Svanback and Josh McClelland records vocals.
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Only at the end of camp, when all of their songs are finished, do the writers let UMPG treat them to dinner offsite — Cecconi’s on Broadway. Over drinks, McClelland jokes that Universal saved money on hotels by having two couples present. Benjmn and Ferraro are married, and Emil is engaged to fellow Dane Celine Svanback, 28; both couples met in past writing sessions. But aside from a few others from the same close-knit territories who’ve worked together before, like McClelland and Klempner, it’s the first time many of the campers have met — although, in the course of conversation, Benjmn and Thulin realize they share credits on a previous song created remotely, Le Sserafim’s “Eve, Psyche & the Bluebeard’s Wife.”
Most of them, it seems, fell into the K-pop world unintentionally, whether they were headhunted by labels or indoctrinated at the nudging of UMPG. It wasn’t the first choice for many but now, it’s become perhaps their best avenue to flex their creative muscles, writing pop, hip-hop, rock and R&B all under the ever-expanding K-pop umbrella.
“It’s not just one sound,” says Wikstrom, who never did come up for air long enough to visit the Disney store. “That’s what I really love — you’re not tied to anything. I used to think, ‘No, I don’t want to do K-pop. I don’t even know what K-pop is.’
“Then, I realized,” she continues, her eyes widening. “K-pop is everything.”
This story will appear in the Aug. 24, 2024, issue of Billboard.
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The first official trailer for Jung Kook‘s upcoming documentary, JUNG KOOK: I AM STILL finds the BTS member fretting about whether fans will accept him as a solo artist as he steps outside of the K-pop supergroup’s massive shadow.
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“I’m suddenly nervous, I’ll do my best guys,” he says in Korean at the outset of the one-minute preview of the film that is slated to open in theaters worldwide on Sept. 18. Amid footage of thousands of fans gathered in arenas and on streets to greet him, he frets, “Without the power of BTS, just on my own, will I be able to receive recognition?”
Reflecting on the success of his debut solo album, 2023’s Golden, which entered the Billboard 200 chart at No. 2 and featured collabs with Jack Harlow, Latto and Major Lazer, among others, he says, “with all these achievements I gained more self-confidence.” Mixing in footage of JK dancing and rehearsing dance moves in the studio, the preview promises to provide “eight months of golden moments.”
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With a vow from the singer to “keep going forward,” the trailer then cuts to a run-down of some of JK’s solo chart success and footage from his videos cued to his single “Standing Next To You,” which peaked at No. 5 on the Billboard Hot 100. “I’ve never though of myself as a genius,” Jung Kook says at one point, admitting that he’s well-aware of his artistic blind spots, which only push him to get better.
“I just follow my own compass,” he says as the screen fades to black before zooming back in on a clip of JK bounding through a backstage area and shouting out the group’s legendarily fervent ARMY fan group. “It’s always more fun with the fans.”
The promo materials promise that the film will capture JK’s development as a solo act, beginning with his No. 1 Hot 100 hit “Seven” (featuring Latto) in July 2023, followed by the release of Golden three months later via never-before-seen video, interviews and concert performance footage. The doc was directed by Junsoo Park and produced by Jiwon Yoon and is set to premiere in limited screenings worldwide in more than 120 countries and regions on Sept. 18, with tickets on sale today here.
Watch the trailer for JUNG KOOK: I AM STILL below.
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