When in the summer of 2012 millions of people started dancing - or whatever that was - to the Gangnam Style, they did not know they were witnessing the beginning of a wave under which they would end up buried. That choreography of a man in a tuxedo, crazy legs, and Texan rodeo gestures on a devilishly fast beat was the Trojan horse that South Korea sent to the Western dance floors to introduce them to K-pop. Then came BTS, Blackpink, Twice... and, now 13 years later, the domination of the charts and the children's audiovisual monopoly of KPop Demon Hunters.
Let's start with the data. Golden, the main song of the Korean Netflix movie, has been number 1 on all global charts until the rise of Taylor Swift -76 consecutive days at the top of the global Spotify chart- and in just four months it has surpassed 850 million streams. Additionally, the warriors' movie is the most-watched film in Netflix history. Of the six songs that have fastest surpassed 100 million streams on Spotify, three involve K-pop singers: APT by Rosé with Bruno Mars; Seven by JungKook with Latto, and Butter by BTS. In the last decade, only four women have managed to sell a million albums in a week: Taylor Swift, Adele, Jisoo, and Jennie, the latter two being members of Blackpink but with solo careers.
K-pop, especially over the past year, has been a record-breaking machine, capturing listeners and conquering children and teenagers. How has a genre that, except for its devoted fans, many people did not understand, managed to conquer the world? The explanation, in part, is geographical and has its beginning in 2021. HYBE, the major K-pop record label, signs a global strategic agreement with Universal that year, the giant of the music industry, for the distribution and promotion of its artists outside of Asia -extended for another 10 years in 2024-. That year, the Korean company created its division in the United States and acquired Ithaca Holdings, Scooter Braun's company, manager of Justin Bieber or Ariana Grande. A year later, SM Entertainment opened an office in Los Angeles, another genre company, and JYP Entertainment strengthened its existing one in the American country for years.
Music has shifted from being produced in Korea to being done in the United States, although it is still made by musicians with Korean roots. The predominant language in the songs is no longer Korean but English. And the new groups are no longer exclusively composed of Asians: Katseye, HYBE's latest creation with the reality show The Debut, includes two women -Meret Manon and Daniela Avanzini- with no relation to Asia among its six members. The record label has just now built another group using the same method, Los Santos Bravos, which blends K-pop with Latin music without any Koreans. And they are still preparing another female group that also does not seem to have members of that nationality.
"The movement to internationalize the genre is fantastic. K-pop had always had to come from Korea and had to be supported there. The products being produced in the United States are so perfect, they have studied the genre so much and have people with Korean roots involved, that even there it feels authentic," explains Ray Seol, associate professor in the Professional Music department at Berklee College of Music in Boston. This K-pop scholar, of Korean origin, recounts how this past summer he returned to his homeland and found several groups of children singing the songs of Demon Hunters. All in English. "The fact that this music is produced outside of Korea gives it a sense of lasting phenomenon rather than appearing as an instant event," adds this professor.
That was the danger looming over the phenomenon in its early days, that it would be a fad and end up buried in the forgotten box like so many other trends. But the business and media framework being created points in the opposite direction. Apart from the Korean companies' landing in the United States, there is also the emergence of the Demon Hunters with the impact they have on K-pop among the youngest and platforms like Apple TV have already begun to introduce the genre in their programs. This August, they premiered a music talent show, K-pop Universe, which integrates Korean pop groups with Western pop stars like Kylie Minogue, Megan Thee Stallion, J Balvin, or Boy George to cover their iconic songs. "The fact that K-pop groups are starting to have non-Korean members already indicates that the goal is clearly not to reach South Korea, but to conquer the entire world," explains musicologist and music journalist Marta España, also an expert in the genre.
España points to the beginning of the change with the arrival of Blackpink in 2018, with their first world tour. The band consisting of Rosé, Jisoo, Jennie, and Lisa broke the image of infantilized girls to show an empowered woman in Western standards. "It opens a path for the rest of the groups to recreate the same codes. Korea saw the opportunity for what had always been their idea: to expand," notes the musicologist, who delves into an important point, the origin of the genre. K-pop indeed originates in Korea, but it does so based on American hip-hop and R&B, to which a faster beat, a different language, and highly choreographed dances are added. In other words, a Korean stamp to send it back tuned to the other side of the world. Now that same stamp is being put in studios in the United States. "Something is changing when their songs are not tied to a choreography, which was unthinkable in K-pop. Additionally, Blackpink are the first to rebel against the restrictions of the K-pop industry. They release music if they have a boyfriend, they vape in public... and partly because they are of Korean origin but raised in Western countries," concludes España.
"K-pop has always had a bit of imitation of American genres like hip-hop. Many people attribute its success to that closeness with the cultural hegemony of the United States. If they were already imitating the hegemonic culture, now that they have commercial ties with America, it is logical that they start producing there and the circle closes," points out Alicia Navarro, a Communication Ph.D. student at Vrije Universiteit Brussel and author of the study The K-pop phenomenon: keys to the global impact of Korean pop. This circle is also completed with pop stars who have collaborated with K-pop artists. Bruno Mars made a splash last summer with APT alongside Rosé leading all the charts. In 2024, Rosalía collaborated with Lisa on New Woman. In 2020, Lady Gaga had already done so with Blackpink on Candy Sour. And a year later, Coldplay joined BTS to create My universe. "K-pop in Korea is an oversaturated industry, a fact that began in the third generation of 2018. So many groups debut in their local market that they either start looking to the West and seek international audiences, or they disappear completely," adds Navarro, who also attributes to Korean pop a trend that has been growing in the West in recent years. "They are starting to adopt their sales practices. For example, Taylor Swift with her multiple album covers. That's a strategy that K-pop has been doing for decades. Concert movies, another thing from K-pop. Having extra goodies with releases, also from K-pop."
Mathieu Berbiguier is an assistant professor of Korean Studies at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh and attributes these new products to "the Korean diaspora." From the beginning, the industry's creators had been exchange students, had traveled, or had lived in the United States. Now they are directly citizens of Western countries with Asian roots. Maggie Kang, creator of the Demon Hunters, was born in Seoul but has been living in Toronto since she was five. EJAE, composer of many of the movie's themes, moved to New York at the age of 20 to finish her art studies at Tisch School, affiliated with New York University. Kenzie, a successful K-pop producer, studied at Berklee. The same goes for many who are now stars of the genre: they were raised outside of Korea or were not born there.
"What is happening with K-pop is that it is becoming a movement and integrating into mainstream currents. I would say it sounds less distant from the current mainstream pop music. Many fans debate whether you can really say something is K-pop without Korean members. This is an ongoing debate without an answer. Ten years ago, if you told someone there would be K-pop without any Koreans, they would have said it was crazy. Now, as it has mainstream status, it is perfectly understandable," Berbiguier points out.
And for the future? "A year ago, no one would have imagined that any girl would sing a Korean song. It is difficult to say what will come next. This process of becoming a mainstream trend will continue to the point where one day we will remember how popular Blackpink or BTS were, just as we now do with Michael Jackson or Madonna in the 90s," says Berbiguier. And Ray Seol concludes: "They are marketing products, but Asians have fought against the prejudices held against us all our lives here. People see Rosé, Jennie, or Jungkook dancing like Michael Jackson, and they are no longer just Asian kids, they are global celebrities. They have created a model of being a pop star, driven by that generation born with social media and understood in any country."