South Korea: K-pop, beyond idols, a well-established successful factory
Audio 02:44
Members of the new K-pop group Blitzers, during a rehearsal session, April 29, 2021. © AFP / Jung Yeon-je
By: Nicolas Rocca Follow
6 mins
The K-pop market, which generates billions of dollars for South Korea, is a way of asserting the country's soft power on an international scale.
In trademark, these bands, girls and boys selected carefully after a rigorous process.
Meet seven boys from a new boy band who have just arrived on the South Korean pop scene.
Publicity
From our correspondent in Seoul,
They are seven, aged 17 and 19, to carry the hopes of the first formation of Wuzo Entertainment.
This K-pop agency, new to the market, has set up Blitzers, a boy band with a look as conditioned as it is colorful.
The members have worked hard to get into the demanding K-Pop market.
“
Compared to other groups, we started working together quite late, I've been training for two years and the others a little less,
” explains one of the members of Blitzers.
► See also: South Korea: No. 1 in the United States, the K-pop group BTS is the pride of the authorities
Intense and multidisciplinary selections
As with others, the agency ran intense selections from dance to song, had them rehearse for days and months before achieving perfect synchronization and selecting the best to finally launch Blitzers.
“
I didn't know if I was going to start getting started with this group.
We were about twenty trainees at the start, and we had to surpass ourselves to show how good we were
, "says Chris, the youngest of the seven."
I was not sure of the result, but I kept constantly my confidence.
And they saw how good we could all be together and that's how we started so young
”.
Colossal pressure
The pressure on their shoulders is colossal, they concentrate the investments and the hopes of their production agency.
Under the watchful eye of their manager, Oh Chan-sok, the speeches are polished, and the structure seems organized in an almost martial way.
“
They are very busy, they get up and go dance practice afterwards, it's vocal training.
There are also English lessons, and after that they have free time to continue to improve,
”explains the manager.
A free time also dedicated to work, they have been living together and training for over a year before arriving at this long-awaited launch in spring 2021.
Surpass the BTS, the next step?
Their hit,
Breathe again
, has already reached millions of views.
A good start which is only the first step to hearing from Chris.
“
As a group we would like to do a show at the Superbowl, because I haven't seen any idols do it,
” he says.
Does he think he can do better than BTS?
“
I wouldn't comment on that
,” he laughs.
BTS is the leading Korean pop figure and most listened to international group of 2020, a success story that has many young artists dreaming about.
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