On the morning of October 18, students and guests passionate about the shocking sounds of K-Pop gathered at the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism for the “Behind the Scenes of K-POP” speaker event.
The event was sponsored by Visions and Voices and planned by Clinical Assistant Professor of Communication Hye Jin Lee in collaboration with the Annenberg and Thornton Schools of Music. It was also co-sponsored by the Korea Foundation and Asian Pacific American Student Services.
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The event officially began at 9:45 a.m. with a warm welcome from Thornton Dean Jason King, who thoughtfully acknowledged the University of Southern California’s location. Next, he introduced Kim Yong-wan, Consul General of the Republic of Korea in Los Angeles, and expressed his gratitude to the event organizers and panelists.
Sessions focused on K-culture marketing featured a myriad of speakers, including Soy Kim, head of North American music and podcast content strategy at YouTube; Kim recalled her experience working with the boy band BTS and emphasized how important it is to have a universal understanding of what music is and how it feels.
“It was really important to understand, ‘What did the band want?’ And they wanted to be seen as a voice for young people, for their generation,” Kim said. “So if that's the story, we need to make sure that's conveyed in everything we do.”
Hye Jin Lee moderated a panel discussion on K-Pop journalism and introduced the first session’s speakers, Chicago Tribune columnist Jae-Ha Kim and Teen Vogue’s associate director of culture P. Claire Dodson. Mr. Kim emphasized the importance of having editors who are interested in K-Pop, and talked about his experiences with editors who did not share that passion.
“It was terrible because they didn’t know what I was writing about and wanted to know why I was using common K-pop terminology,” Kim said. “I felt really bad for the artists who took an hour to talk to me…and learned that they only saw them as a measuring stick and not as people."
Dodson also shared her experience as an editor at Teen Vogue and what she often looks for in K-pop stories.
“For me, it was important to consider how K-pop brings in different cultural narratives and different kinds of themes and influences,” Dodson said. “What I look for in interviews is a deep dive into what the artist has created.”
In a subsequent session on K-Pop songwriting, ITZY, ENHYPEN, and NMIXX songwriter Charlotte Wilson talked about her mindset during the songwriting process and how K-Pop inspired her to explore. He talked about how it gave him uniqueness.
“Writing a K-pop song, especially a mixed-genre song, is basically like writing a topline with one or two people, but it takes 10 people to write it,” Wilson said. . “Basically, your mind needs to be focused on every genre.”
K-POP is not only a fusion of various music genres, but also features different members’ personalities and styles. David Amber, music producer and songwriter for TWICE, NCT, and AOA, shares how he and many other songwriters approach this and write songs that embody these different styles I did.
“There are two ways to approach it. One way is to just ignore it and just write a great record and you’ll know who goes where and what does what,” Amber said. Ta. “Or you can go the other way and switch it up really hard every two bars. Then it becomes a mathematical show-and-tell game for all the writers.”
Following a lunch break and an energetic dance performance by the Spade A dance team, the session focused on K-Pop live events began. The panel featured Joe Choe, Senior Vice President of Marketing and Partnerships at CJ ENM America, and Marlene Tsuchii, Music Agent at Creative Artists Agency.
Choi, who joined CJ ENM earlier this year, shared his insights and experiences working on KCON, the K-Pop convention, for the first time, and how the event has evolved since its first celebration in 2012. Originally attracting 10,000 attendees, KCON has grown to a 140,000-person event, making up the majority of LA Live at the Crypto.com Arena.
“So from 10,000 people who were mostly Koreans or neighbors, to now, essentially 80 percent of the event is non-Asian,” Choi said. “So even within the 20% Asian group, Koreans are actually probably a minority.”
The final session consisted of Meg Harkins, Executive Vice President of Imperial Music and Casablanca Records, and Daniel Hong, COO of JYP USA, who discussed the topic of K-Pop in the United States.
Harkins and Hong emphasized the importance of physical products in the K-Pop industry, as 90% of K-Pop releases in the United States are physical copies. Whether it’s randomized photo cards or albums, all of these products are directly imported from Korea, so it’s very important that they are released on time.
“Most of our consumption is physical, so if we miss the deadline or timing, we will face serious problems,” Hong said.
Harkins pointed out that more people are looking for cross-cultural moments in K-pop to make it more meaningful, but how will K-pop evolve in the coming years? He said he did not know.
“I’m very hopeful, but I think the ‘K’ is going to be here to stay, whether it’s through language or just through process,” Harkins said.