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Global talent, Korean-trained: K-pop's new recipe for world domination
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According to Spotify, BLACKPINK is the most popular K-Pop group on Spotify globally with more than 9.7 million monthly listeners worldwide. (twitter.com/ygent_official/File)
F
rom Indian K-pop idols to Swedish songwriters, South Korea's music industry is now a hotbed of global talent -- a smart strategy as it aims for world domination, experts say.
K-pop bands have long included non-Koreans: Blackpink's Lisa is Thai, while Japan and China are both well represented, and Korean-American singers have topped the local charts.
But after megastars like Psy and BTS brought K-pop to a global audience, the South Korean entertainment agencies behind almost all the popular groups are recruiting further afield.
DR Music's girl group Blackswan only has two Koreans in its six-woman line-up, and last month added the industry's first Indian "idol", who joins Brazilian and Senegalese members.
In the United States a Korean-American K-pop singer, AleXa, recently won NBC's American Song Contest, the US version of Eurovision. Though she sang in English, her training in Seoul made her stand out.
Staff at NBC said they had "never worked with an artist who could find a camera on stage faster", according to Angelina Foss, creative director at South Korea's ZB Label.
By the end of filming, other contestants were asking AleXa for tips, Foss said, adding that it was "just part of the training".
