As the Korean Wave is stretching to the world, Kpop entertainment companies look for global stars not limited to Korean entertainer. It gets usual to see foreign members in Korean idol group.
For example, Lisa in black pink is from thailand,
JYP’s representative girl group twice has three japanese members, one taiwan member
and Sm’s boy group Exo has Chinese members and a group seventeen’s vernon is a person of mixed race.
The preference of Korean entertainment is changing to have foreign members.
Because they have a command of foreign language and foreign members can come to closer to foreign fans.
As K-pop market expands worldwide, many foreigners wants to be a Kpop star.
I’ll introduce some ways to apply for a Kpop star.
Being a Kpop star gets very competitive as more and more people want to be a Kpop star.
Nowadays Kpop stars are very talented with good singing and dancing skills and they care hard for their good looks.
The fastest way to be a Kpop star is to enter grand Korean entertainment companies.
Grand companies are SM (Exo, girl’s generation, red velvet), JYP(Twice, Suzy), YG(bigbang, blackpink), KakaoM(IU), Big Hit(BTS), Cube(hyuna, BtoB) and else.
However, entering the grand entertainment company doesn’t mean being a Kpop star.
If you pass for the entry of grand companies, you enter as a trainee of the company and you should bear times in the company getting trained by professional trainers in the company. The time depends on individual’s skills and the company’s circumstances.
In the case of EXO, the leader Su-ho was in the position of a trainee for seven years
while Chen and Back-hyun spent time as a trainee less than a year.
Some companies ask for money to trainees but most of company or people asking for money are scams.
Responsible companies have a capital strength and as they invest for trainees, they never ask for money to trainees.
A standard way to enter the grand entertainment company is to apply for the company’s audition. Many companies hold auditions regularly.
The audition announcement are usually shown in the company’s homepage.
Some companies always open a chance for audition and some companies hold auditions for a limited time. It depends on companies.
Not all audition is held face to face. Some companies accept online audition. If the company accept online audition, send them an e-mail with your video or audio file.
Nowadays, big companies hold audition visiting different countries to recruit foreign members or Koreans living abroad. If you’re living out of Korea, you can look for a chance of their visiting or apply by online.
As the level of Kpop star rose very high, you have to show a powerful talent to catch the recruiter’s eye. You have to sing very well or dance very well.
If your Korean language skill is good, you will get an additional score as you can communicate with Korean fans and staffs better.
If you have a good looking it will definitely be a plus factor. But as nowadays Kpop stars are in good shape and talented at the same time, a good looking person without talent or effort is hard to survive.
Except the famous entertainment companies, there are many small and rising entertainment companies such as wiehwa, maru. You can look for other small company’s audition. But I don’t recommend companies which ask for money to the trainees because they are usually scams.
In rare cases, the entertainers are recruited if they have a chance to confront casting managers from an entertainment company. But in this case, the scouted people usually has an outstanding good looks.
As there are so many applicants including foreign applicants, mediocre talent can’t catch the recruiter’s eyes. Try hard to have an outstanding talent and keep applying for the audition.
It’s hard to get passed at a time. Many famous entertainers such as hyun-a, IU also has many experiences of failure to enter the entertainment companies.
Prepare hard and good luck!
