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[NPR] How Asian Americans found a home in the world of K-pop

April 14, 2015

 

Asian music hitmaker Jae Chong, at work in a studio in Seoul. His work is all over Asian charts, but his passport is American. (Instagram/NPR)

Asian music hitmaker Jae Chong, at work in a studio in Seoul. His work is all over Asian charts, but his passport is American. (Instagram/NPR)

[NPR.ORG]

It’s no secret that the Korean entertainment industry’s prime export — K-pop — is now a global phenomenon. But for what’s considered a largely Asian hit-making machine, it’s Americans who are often headlining the groups.

How did things come to be this way? To talk about it, we found a pioneer of the cross-over gambit, Jae Chong, in a basement studio in Seoul, or more specifically, a neighborhood you probably know of…

“It’s in Gangnam,” Chong says with a laugh.

Chong is an Asian superproducer. You can liken him to the Asian Dr. Luke, or Pharrell, since Chong was once an artist, too. These days, he’s all about the pan-Asian group, Aziatix, which he founded a few years back.

But that’s not his only claim to fame. He’s written and produced hit singles for Mando-Pop supernovas like Coco Lee and A-mei, and several K-Pop stars who are household names in Asia, like Kim Gun Mo, and JYJ.

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