Global auditions are changing the ‘K’ in K-pop

K-pop giant JYP Entertainment recently launched VCHA, an all-female idol group composed entirely of members from Canada and the United States who had passed auditions held in North America. The band says its members’ backgrounds include Korean, white, Latino, black, Vietnamese and Hmong ancestries.

The once-novel idea of a K-pop group without Korean members, which caught the attention of the BBC and CNN, now seems on the brink of becoming the norm.

Inspired by the evolving face of K-pop, I have been tracking global K-pop auditions in Canada since 2023. In the first half of 2023, Canada was the eighth-largest K-pop market in the world.

Between February and April 2024, I visited audition venues: once in Vancouver in February, and twice in Toronto in March and then April. I observed increasing cultural and ethnic diversity among hopefuls aspiring to follow in the footsteps of K-pop groups like BTS, BLACKPINK or Canadian K-pop artists like Toronto-born Keeho in the band P1Harmony.

The boundaries that have traditionally defined K-pop – which contributes billions of dollars to South Korea’s economy annually and has captured global attention –are blurring.

While BTS’s leader RM defined K-pop as a cultural “premium label” in a 2023 interview, the term ‘K’ might be losing its distinctiveness — prompting questions about what it might encompass in the future.

Beyond linguistic borders

Outside the audition venue, I observed participants rehearsing their K-pop songs. They hummed with proficient Korean pronunciation, yet interspersed a notable quantities of English in their lyrics.

Data from the Circle Chart, managed by the Korea Music Content Association, corroborate this linguistic blend. K-pop girl group songs show a significant