On October 18th, USC Annenberg and Visions & Voices collaborated to host Behind the Scenes of K-pop, a full day symposium consisting of five sessions featuring insiders and experts from various sides of the K-pop industry. This event focused on digging deeper into the field, allowing students to become more than just fans of the genre and providing avenues to potentially break into the industry. Instead of showcasing K-pop stars, Behind the Scenes of K-pop featured professionals working in journalism, songwriting, publishing, live events, marketing, and artist agencies to discuss the ever expanding growth of K-pop.
“I just know that a lot of students… who are interested in getting entry in the K-pop industry needed this kind of event,” explained Professor Hye Jin Lee of USC Annenberg, the organizer of the event.
Lee articulated the gap she saw, saying, “I want to bring a bunch of industry folks because there are a lot of K-pop conferences, but it’s mostly scholars who are talking. It’s great… But we don’t really have access to what the industry folks think and their insights, and I think that’s what students really, really miss.”
When asked about who she wanted to showcase in the symposium, Lee described her intent for highlighting a variety of professionals. “I knew that I wanted to bring industry folks from a lot of different fields, not just songwriters or not just marketers, but something that’s for everybody,” she said.
The full day began with the first session titled “K-pop Journalism” was moderated by Lee and featured P. Claire Dodson, Associate Director of Culture at Teen Vogue, and Jae-Ha Kim, a columnist at the Chicago Tribune.
The conversation focused largely on the development of K-pop as a topic within mainstream journalism and culture. Kim highlighted how K-pop “was used almost as clickbait” in the past since there was prejudice against the genre prior. Now, many writers are pitching to editors with ideas on K-pop group coverage due to its popularity, explained Dodson during the panel.
Following this was “Making K-pop - Songwriting, Producing, and Publishing,” moderated by USC Thornton Professor Nate Sloan. Songwriters Charlotte Wilson and Ben Samama, producer and songwriter David Amber, and publisher Justin Hahn from 153/Joombas Music Group spoke during this part of the event.
Having written and produced for groups like TWICE, RIIZE, ITZY, ENHYPEN, and other K-pop artists, Wilson, Samama, and Amber provided insight into the creation of K-pop music in particular. Wilson described how when writing K-pop “you need to be 10 people” because your mind has to be in every genre. Samana echoes that sometimes K-pop writing can be a “crazy showoff game” since every two bars features a new part or something new and interesting.
Christina Ferraro, a K-pop fan and a masters student at USC Roski working on her thesis about K-pop visual aesthetics, was fascinated by this part of the event.
“When the producers and songwriters were diving into the process of how K-pop songs are made, since I am not necessarily a musician, it was really cool to learn how the songs that we enjoy and listen to are made,” she said.
Since dance is a major component of the genre as well, Amber explained how you have to think about the group and the different parts of the song structure. For TWICE’s hit “Yes or Yes,” Amber touched on how he kept in mind different pieces of the song to showcase singing and vocals, rap, and even the dance break.
To feature the impact of K-pop music and dance, between the second and third sessions was a dance performance by Spade A Dance, the K-pop dance cover team at USC. This led directly into the third session, “Live Events” with panelists Marlene Tsuchii, a Music Agent at Creative Artists Agency, and Joen Choe, the Senior Vice President of Marketing and Partnerships at CJ ENM America moderated by Lee.
Anish Lahorani is a USC Music Industry major focusing on live events, but he does not know as much about K-pop. He attended this session to learn more about the industry.
“Marlene [Tsuchii] talked about how she brought in the entire SM Entertainment into CAA which is really interesting because usually agencies sign on an individual artist basis,” he said. “Seeing them sign an entire management roster really attests to the strength of the K-pop market in the US.”
Lahorani added that he was most interested in the major impact K-pop has from a social perspective as well.
“A lot of the conversations surrounded superfans’ roles in making these artists successful, fan culture, and the ethics of K-pop consumerism,” Lahorani said. “It was really interesting to observe the fans in the crowd at the event. While the dancers performed, they all got excited when certain songs came on and cheered in the middle of the songs. When the panelists would mention certain groups, the fans in the crowd would scream out if they liked them.”
Following the discussion on live events, there was a fourth session titled “K-culture Marketing,” featuring YouTube Head of North America, Music & Podcasts Content Strategy Soy Kim, Vice President of Creative at Republic Records Annie Stoll, Vice President of Global Artist & Label Services at The Orchard Marissa Putney, and Choe.
Also moderated by Lee, this session focused on the differences and similarities between marketing in South Korea and in the U.S. and the importance of communicating those differences to the Korean companies to assist them with best marketing K-pop groups in the United States. For example, Soy Kim described how the U.S. has new music releases on Fridays at midnight Eastern Standard Time how the timing is often very different from K-pop releases. Kim articulated that conversations are focused on communicating that “so we can win together.”
The fifth and final session titled “K-pop in the U.S.” moderated by Lee as well showcased Meg Harkins, the Executive Vice President at Imperial Music and Casablanca Records, and Daniel Hong, the COO of JYP USA. This session focused primarily on JYP Entertainment groups, such as Stray Kids and VCHA, and the marketing strategies used for global-facing K-pop groups. Notably, VCHA is not necessarily a K-pop group, but features American members who were selected in a reality competition show resembling popular K-pop survival shows.
With all the various panelists and focuses of the full day symposium, Behind the Scenes of K-pop brought all five sessions nearly to capacity with nearly 600 attendees overall. This event reflected the growth of K-pop beyond just a music genre. As the field is becoming more of a potential goal for college students, Behind the Scenes of K-pop is part of a push to place all sides of the K-pop industry to the forefront of conversations.
