Redfining K-Pop: Kazakh K-Pop trainee Aiga and French K-pop manager

K-Pop의 세계화: 카자흐스탄 아이돌 연습생과 프랑스인 기획사 창업자 만나본다<br /><br />As the popularity of K-Pop sweeps the world, we're seeing more and more non-Koreans becoming involved in the industry, as aspiring K-Pop stars and even managers.<br />Oh Soo-young has this story.<br />20 year old Aiganym looks every inch the wide-eyed and endearing K-Pop star.<br />From the highland city of Aktobe in Kazakhstan where her grandmother walked her hand-in-hand to music lessons as a child,... Aiga took her own steps towards her dream at age 18,... moving to the K-Pop capital of Seoul.<br />"I grew up loving Korean dramas and music and dreamt of joining the artists on stage. That dream became a determination and, now, here I am."<br />Perfecting her signature moves and her vocals 12 hours a day,... she now lives and trains with four other trainees of a local entertainment company,... all of them hoping to make it into a girl group launching next year.<br />With Korean music captivating global fans, more and more people from around the world want to become part of the creative process,... broadening the definition of K-pop.<br />This not only goes for aspiring K-Pop artists themselves but music producers and managers.<br />Frenchman Thomas Sommer, three years ago,... made a radical business decision.<br />Thousands of miles away from his home country, Sommer co-founded a K-Pop management firm in South Korea with his friend Joon-hae Woo Spielmann,... a French music producer with Korean roots.<br />While some question whether the global K-Pop fandom will go further than being a trend,... Sommer believes it's an up and coming industry, with the quintessentially Korean qualities delivering a timeless message to the world.<br />"It's about the external appearance, it's about how you behave on stage, it's about the attention to detail, it's about the perfectionism. It's about sacrificing yourself for the group. All of these qualities are what makes K-Pop K-Pop it shows people how to live together as a family.<br />But K-Pop also needs to grow and evolve to become sustainable.<br />That's where this company hopes to find its niche, drawing from its European heritage.<br />"So first of all trainees are still very young they still needs to develop their own identity, and these values suggest ways to have better way to understand themselves to develop themselves right as well so they can respect themselves as well as respect the others. Especially we are looking about to study the limits of their own consciousness to help them to support better their own stress when they developing themselves..."<br />As K-Pop continues to grow, industry players will have to consider evolving in diversity while preserving authenticity, in a way that strikes a chord with millions around the world.<br />Oh Soo-young, Arirang News.<br /><br />