K-pop stars are testing U.S. waters with collaborations
K-pop mania is sweeping the globe right now, with K-pop bands like BIGBANG, Girls Generation and BTS trending on Facebook and YouTube every week. But making it in America may be harder than you think.
After several failed attempts by Korean and Japanese superstars to break into the U.S. market in the early 2000s, K-pop stars have been eschewing the flashy debut in favor of subtler collaborations with established or rising American artists. G-Dragon has worked with Missy Elliot and Baauer, R&B singer Dean made a buzzy English debut with Eric Bellinger, while boy band JYJ tapped Kanye West for a collaboration on Ayy Girl. And rapper and girl group 2NE1 member, CL, had success with will.i.am, Skrillex and Diplo before making her much-anticipated U.S. debut last month.
Korean-American singer Eric Nam and rising EDM duo KOLAJ are the latest cross-Pacific collaboration, blending tropical house beats with smooth K-pop melodies for their single Into You, the music video for which dropped Wednesday.
We caught up with Nam and KOLAJ singer Teesa Houston as they prepared to release the music video for Into You, which stars 9-year-old Fresh Off the Boat actor Ian Chen and was directed by Jon Jon Augustavo (Macklemore & Ryan Lewis' Thrift Shop, Mike Posner's I Took a Pill in Ibiza). Chen takes the spotlight in the music video, putting on a Love Actually-esque performance to woo a fellow elementary schooler, while Houston and Nam cheer from the bleachers.
“While I’m excited and proud of what we've done with Into You, I don't really want to call it an official debut because it's a collaboration and in that sense I borrow heavily from KOLAJ's beautiful sounds (and vice versa),” Nam told us.
The inclusion of Chen from Fresh Off the Boat -- the first U.S. sitcom in years to feature an Asian-American family -- is apt for Nam and Houston, who are both Asian-Americans who have faced obstacles in the U.S. music industry. Raised in Atlanta,Nam moved to Korea to pursue his musical career after getting discovered through his YouTube song covers.
“Korean-Americans, Asian-Americans are so unbelievably underrepresented in the U.S. entertainment and media industries and I don’t think we are given a real shot,” Nam said. "So I think making it in Korea and Asia was more realistic and to be able to hone my craft there and then come back to the U.S. was and is the only way for an Asian artist to have a real shot as it is today."
Houston, who is of Japanese descent, agrees. “I think it’s difficult in general for Asian faces to break into the big label industry… I’ve had to been told, ‘No, people won’t invest in you because of your image.'”
But are these collaborations enough to get Korean artists attention Stateside? It’s too soon to say, though Nam hopes that it will get his name and sound out to U.S. audiences.
“I think of it as more of a slight introduction to the U.S. and the first baby steps,” Nam said.
It's a different approach than the much-hyped 2009 U.S. debuts of K-pop superstars BoA and Se7en. Accused of changing their music styles to fit the American market, their English-language albums flopped. Later attempts to break into the U.S. market with English versions of popular K-pop hits by girl groups Girls Generation and the Wonder Girls also failed to make a mark.
"What works in the States doesn't easily translate to the Korean market" and vice versa, Nam said.
But Nam and Houston hope that with English-language collabs such as theirs, the music will speak to American audiences first.
“I think Into You does have the potential to cross markets because it’s entirely written in English, and we’re both Asian American -- it’s cool to release something totally from our perspective in the U.S.,” Houston said.