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| Alexandra Reid - K-Pop's first Africa American group member from RaNia |
In the era of globalization, every industry
is emphasizing internationalization, including K-Pop. When management companies
choose their trainees to group and debut, they not only assess the
entertainment abilities, but also consider their foreign language skills, or
even find foreign members to join the group directly.
Nowadays, international group with non-Korean
members is very common in K-Pop, and the nationalities of members determine a
group’s regional targeting. By arousing national consciousness, they give you a
reason to follow and support their groups, and also create an opportunity to expand
their market.
Just like most international enterprises
take China as the largest market in the world, China is a great temptation to K-Pop
as well. As a result, Chinese is the most common international members in K-Pop
idol groups, and more and more groups are releasing their title songs in
Chinese version in order to own a place in this market.
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| Miss A |
With two Chinese out of four members, MissA is an obvious example that clearly targets China besides South Korea. They were
active in China before their official debut in South Korea, and have been
keeping a close relationship with China until now. From the beginning of their
debut, all of their singles and title songs were released in two versions,
Korean and Chinese.
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| EXO-K |
With four members born in China, EXO originally
debuted with 12 members separated into two subgroups, EXO-K (Korean) and EXO-M (Mandarin).
Also targets China apparently, they released all of their albums in two
versions, Korean and Chinese.
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| EXO-M |
This is interesting, I don't know much about K-pop so this is new information to me. It makes sense that K-pop would want to expand their market and this is an interesting way of doing that!
ReplyDeleteIt also surprised me when I first heard of an international group, and now they've proved that this way does work, really well!
DeleteThis is such an interesting angle on K-pop! International icons are often overlooked and we never really think about where certain groups originate or how they came to be popular outside of their native country! Maybe a Grammy's special is in the near future!
ReplyDeleteYeah, it seems like they just suddenly pop up and slip into your life, but there are actually lots of tactics behind the scenes. Looking forward to the Grammy, too!
DeleteAs a music lover myself, I'm sad to say I know very little about K-Pop, which is embarrassing considering what a large market it is. I look forward to expanding my musical horizons with the help of your blog!
ReplyDeleteHa ha no worries, even though K-Pop overwhelmed Asia, I'm pretty sure that most Western people are still unfamiliar with it. Welcome to a new world!
DeleteVery interesting Jennifer. There's beautiful music written all around the world. An interesting insight into the world of K-Pop.
ReplyDeleteAnd there's no border for music. Thanks Giacomo.
DeleteI've heard of K-Pop before but had never really learned about it until checking out your blog. Really interesting to know that there's an expansion (or even competition) coming from different regions of Korea and China! Great post!
ReplyDelete