Spotify For The Record Podcast Spotlights K-Pop Music

Spotify's For The Record podcast will spotlight the global rise of K-Pop music in its latest episode.

 

K-Pop has taken over the music world, proving to be one of the fastest-growing genres with an ever-expanding roster of impressive and immensely talented artists dominating the charts and achieving crossover success. 

 

The meteoric rise of K-Pop globally and on Spotify, as well as how the fandom has helped usher in the success of K-Pop, are the focus of today’s intriguing new episode of the Spotify: For The Record podcast series, “From Seoul to São Paulo: The Global Rise of K-Pop.”

 

 On this episode, Spotify interviewed the members of Stray Kids - one of the most streamed K-Pop artists of all time - who share how the genre transcends the barriers of language, decide who the best cook is and even impersonate a mosquito. 

  

The episode also includes insightful commentary from Kossy Ng, Spotify’s Head of Artist Label Partnerships in Southeast Asia; Babi Dewet and Érica Imenes, a pair of Brazilian K-Pop fans who have founded K-Pop themed groups and podcast, Kpapo (Brazil is the 5th biggest streaming K-Pop market on Spotify); and Wonho Chung, a Korean actor, singer, and comedian who lives in the U.A.E. and has witnessed the rise of K-Pop in the Middle East, where the genre has seen massive growth.

"I think that the K is really important for people to know," Imenes begins. "But I think that treating K-Pop as a part of, you know, just the pop community, that would be the ideal world. We have to stop thinking that things that are not American slash European slash white oriented are exotic. They are not. 

"They are valid productions, amazingly done. They are actually putting every other industry in check. You know, everyone else, they just feel like they had to step up their game to go with K-Pop right now. And of course, K-Pop was made to conquer the world. And there you have it-we are conquered.”

Wonho Chung puts the popularity of K-Pop around the world in perspective.
“In Dubai, it's very hard to sell out concerts. These K-Pop bands came in and every single ticket was sold," Chung begins. "People were flying in from different countries so that they don't miss out on this, you know, K-Pop extravaganza…. I have lived in Dubai for 16 and a half years. While living here I saw Destiny's Child, I saw Beyonce perform at Formula One, I've seen Gaga, I've seen Stevie Wonder, I've seen Michael Bublé... 

"A lot of people come here and I have never seen a concert hall that busy. The energy was absolutely insane. Five thousand people screaming at the top of their lungs for two hours.” Since Spotify debuted their first K-Pop playlist in 2014, listeners have streamed more than 180 billion minutes of the genre and added K-Pop tracks to more than 120 million Spotify playlists. The share of K-Pop listening has even increased by more than two thousand percent in the last six years, demonstrating its rapid growth compared to other musical genres.

 Spotify’s For The Record podcast series provides fresh insights in the world of music, podcasting and tech, bringing together voices from within the company alongside industry experts to discuss cultural events, listening trends, the tech behind our platform and more. 

 More details on today’s episode are available HERE