KPOPPING i dia
nt hrough
MAHAK RAJGARHIA
What are the tweens and the teens listening to these days, we wonder. The answer is, music that is fresh, new and adds a little zing to give aka K-Pop.
K-Pop expands to Korean pop or popular music from South Korean which has picked up in the recent years. A part of Hallyu or the Korean wave, K-Pop began finding its feet in the world in the 21st century after South Korea developed diplomatic relations with China.
This genre of music derives heavily from the American R & B culture given the kind of music, videos and beats it uses. Bands like BTS or the Bangtan boys, EXO, Wonder Girls, Super Junior are the popular bands that have received worldwide fame and recognition. And not just fame, there are many YouTube channels where all that the bloggers do is make covers. Such is the K-Pop rage in the world.
But if you were to find the first K-Pop hit, it was none other than Psy’ s Gangnam Style which was released in 2012 and stayed in the Top-10 of US billboards for straight 7 weeks.
And India is not far behind. It is as affected by the cute and charming singers and their music. Here, north-east was the first part to be engulfed by K-Pop followed by the metro cities of Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai & Mumbai because of the north eastern population that resides there.
And to prove the madness – India has its own K-Pop singing reality contest which was first held in 2012 in Delhi. But 6 years later in 2017, the competition is still on – and this time it was called K-Pop India Contest 2017 where there were 898 participants and the turnout was over 2,000 people, all of which were crazy K-pop fans. This contest is no less than Mecca for K-Pop fans in India.
This doesn’ t end there. There are BTS’ s ARMY & EXO-L’ s, the official Indian fandom groups for the bands BTS & EXO. These boy bands are reigning the K-Pop music scene and how! There are WhatsApp groups based on the region who you live in, Facebook pages, fundraising events and a countless other online methods that keep the buzz and fandom going for the listeners. Even VH-1 started a show called K-Pop’ d to promote and get the fresh music some new ears.
The Indian‘ K-Pop crazies’ have even managed to create a worldwide Twitter trend # IndialovesBTS when the band mentioned India in an interview with a reputed magazine last year.
And all this is love, passion and the ability to relate is a result of staying connected via the internet since all the fandom is online. From their videos to blogs to all the buzz and chatter, all of it can be found on the internet which is where the K-Pop fans thrive.
Their immaculately choreographed dance routines, the bling and the vibrant stage presence makes K-Pop what it is today, an international sensation.
And as most of the fans say, once you fall down the K-Pop rabbit hole, there is no looking back but finding your way to your favorites and sticking to them!
So let’ s K-Pop maybe?
The Score Magazine highonscore. com
33