India's K-Pop wave: Young genre enthusiasts on Korean popular culture

From South Korean musician Psy's upbeat song 'Gangnam Style' going viral in India in 2012, to present day, when the youth across the country are enthusiastically consuming K-Pop content, the K-Pop wave in India now has thousands competing for the online ninth edition of the K-Pop India Contest this year and even trying their hand at the genre.

Just the latest example of the unrelenting enthusiasm this genre is building, the Contest is organised by the Korean Cultural Centre India. According to We Are Family, the 2018 LG K-Pop Contest winners from Delhi, " K-Pop is like a world unto itself; it is a lifestyle".

"We first got to know about K-Pop from YouTube. The songs, the idols and K-Dramas, they sparked our interest in K-Pop. We love how addictive the melodies are," the group told IANSlife. Akanksha Kacker, the third place winner of 2019 Delhi Regional Round says that she first came across K-Pop through Psy's Gangnam Style, as most of us did. "However, at the time, I had no idea what it was. A few years later, in March 2016, I happened to watch BTS's music video for a song called Dope, and it basically changed my life forever."

Mumbai-based Kshitija, who participated in this year's Mumbai Regional Round, says K-Pop has been her "pace maker for years".

"Looking ten years back in time still makes me emotional. K-pop surely brings out most of my emotions, hyping me up, shattering me down, immensely motivating and endlessly inspiring. That's how this journey has been and I will walk this road forever. K-pop has always had the most "out of the box" music, lyrics, video directing, choreographies, cinematography, styling, make up and the list goes on. Really there's so much one can admire about K-pop industry."

"What stands out the most about K-pop is the amount of passion and hard-work that artists put into work. Its mind-blowing and absolutely admirable. K-pop helps me get back on track whenever I feel like I'm losing my way," she told IANSlife.

Sweta, a Contest participant from Chennai, recalls: "It was in 2011, when I was in my 10th grade, that I heard a Korean song. Our school conducts Foreign Language Songs Competition every year, and one of the teams happened to sing the song "No Other" by Super Junior. This was the very first Korean song that I listened to, and it developed a great amount of curiosity to dig deeper into this boy band and their songs. " (IANS)

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