Joseon pop tantalizes US music fans

Shawn Choi, center, poses with Korean folk fusion band ADG7 in Ottawa, Canada in November during the band's North America tour. Courtesy of Shawn Choi

SORI Artists' Shawn Choi brings Korean folk fusion musicians to US

This article is the second in a three-part series on Joseon pop ― E.D.

By Kang Hyun-kyung

Korean folk fusion band Ak Dan Gwang Chil's 35-minute concert on the Seattle-based radio station, KEXP, which was released on Nov. 29, offers listeners a unique cultural experience.

Created by several different traditional stringed instruments, flutes and percussion, the intense composite sound and the powerful yet restrained vocals of the female singers create a unique sound that is both colorful and highly addictive.

Viewers are drawn into their masterful presentation of Korean traditional or folk music with modern twists, as the band, also known by the acronym, ADG7, performs one song after the other.

Introducing the Korean band, producer and DJ Darek Mazzone, the host of the KEXP show, said he "fell in love with" the Korean band when he met them in New York, adding that he was extremely excited about the fact that they represented Korea in such an interesting way.

Some viewers also shared that excitement.

In the viewer comments section of the online channel, one person wrote, "This was CRAZY GOOD! Never heard of them! The energy is insane." Another expressed a similar view, writing, "This is probably the most interesting band that I've seen this year. Absolutely amazing."

More good news is expected in January.

ADG7 will be featured on another influential world music platform, NPR's Tiny Desk Concert series. Their concert will be released via the U.S.-based non-profit media organization on Jan. 18. Under the concert series title, "Tiny Desk Meets globalFEST," NPR will present three nights of music from around the world to its listeners.

Choi Sung-woo, better known as Shawn Choi among world music experts, and the founder of the New York-based entertainment agency, SORI Artists, pins his hope on ADG7, saying that the band's members are talented and that their career will take off in the near future.

"They remind me of SsingSsing," he told The Korea Times during a recent phone interview. "The members of the two bands are very talented and the way they rise in the United States is similar. Like ADG7, SsingSsing was discovered at the world music festival, globalFEST, and got the golden opportunity to perform on NPR's Tiny Desk Concert… I am trying to help ADG7 keep moving forward, so that they can write their own success story."

Choi has bittersweet memories of SsingSsing, a group that fused Korean traditional music with various other genres, like glam rock, disco and psychedelic rock. The six-member band rose to instant stardom among Korean music fans after their performance on NPR's Tiny Desk Concert series in 2017 went viral.

Their popularity, however, was short-lived. The band broke up the following year.

Choi, who arranged SsingSsing's U.S. tour and performance on NPR, regrets the band's missed opportunities in the United States.

"Like ADG7, SsingSsing members were talented. They had fun on the stage….If SsingSsing were still active and had striven to have a stronger presence in the United States, they would have been commercially successful," he said. "They were lucky enough to be able to perform both at globalFEST and on NPR's Tiny Desk Concert series, two of the most powerful platforms in world music, and became known to wider audiences through word of mouth. I saw the possibility of their career taking off in the United States, but it didn't happen because they broke up."

Shawn Choi / Courtesy of Shawn Choi

Choi's ties with Korean traditional fusion music artists began in 2010, three years after he started working with the Flushing Town Hall in New York, where there is a large Korean diaspora population, as director of marketing and community engagement.

He invited Korean art troupes three or four times annually to introduce Korean music to the local community. While working with Korean artists, he discovered several talented musicians. Their concerts in the United States ended up being one-off events. In other words, they arrived in the United States through government-sponsored programs for performances once or twice, returned home and were then forgotten in the United States.

Choi wanted to bridge the gap between Korean traditional music artists and the U.S. world music market and founded the entertainment startup, SORI Artists, in New York. His agency aims to build a system that can help artists visit the United States for performances again and again, so that they can ultimately gain a foothold in the world music market there. Since then, he has been juggling two jobs ― his full-time position at the Flushing Town Hall and his entertainment startup work.

There were and still are no entertainment agencies in the United States other than SORI Artists that connect Korean folk fusion musicians to various world music platforms in the United States. Being a trailblazer means that there is a lot of work that Choi needs to learn by himself to figure out how to make things happen and move his business forward.

His pioneering role in Korean fusion bands' global expansion resembles that of some K-pop pioneers, such as SM Entertainment founder Lee Soo-man or JYP founder Park Jin-young, who tried hard to find overseas opportunities for their artists in the 2000s.

Joseon pop vs. K-pop

Despite their shared experiences, Choi said Joseon pop and K-pop are not comparable, and noted that the former is way behind the latter in terms of financing.

"In K-pop, there's a system in place and it has been built over the past several decades. But here in Korean folk pop, we don't have it. We don't have the knowhow, either," he said. "K-pop people are free of financial woes because they can find investors whenever and wherever they want, as it is a thriving industry. But few investors are interested in Korean fusion bands."

He said that many folk fusion bands and musicians feel the pinch and that global expansion is unthinkable, although they are talented enough to appeal to overseas music fans.

K-pop and Joseon pop also have different fan bases.

K-pop fans are a tightly woven group very loyal to their idols, whereas those who turn out for concerts hosted by Korean fusion bands are random music lovers who happen to be there to discover music they had not experienced before. Choi said they are "culturally curious, open-minded" listeners.

"I don't think K-pop fans are part of the audiences that turn out at Korean fusion music concerts," he said. "Korean fusion bands are well received among people between their 30s and 50s and they are ethnically and racially diverse."

K-pop and Joseon pop have also taken different paths to success in the U.S. market.

K-pop was popular in Asia and already a known thing in Europe even before it broke into the U.S. mainstream market in the mid-2010s. The U.S. was the last remaining ― though largest ― market for K-pop, before BTS broke into it in the late 2010s.

The rise of K-pop in the United States is the result of decades of continuous efforts of those who were involved in the industry.

In contrast, Korean folk fusion bands began to enter the U.S. world music market from the mid-2010s, when some of those musical groups began to draw attention from people in the industry. Choi said that there is a lot of work to be done for Korean folk fusion bands to have a stronger presence in the United States.