First and Only Non-Korean K-Pop Band EXP to Try Their Luck in South Korea
EXP, the first ever non-Korean K-Pop boy band, is set to release a crowd-funded mini album and hopefully get a chance to land interviews, gigs, and even a variety show in South Korea according to website DramaFever.
The band is composed of non-Korean members who dreams of making it big in the music industry and be known as the world's first Non-Korean K-Pop band. The members, Tarion Taylor Anderson, Frankie Daponte, Jr., Hunter Kohl, Sime Kosta, Koki Tomlinson, and David Wallace, hail from the United States, Croatia, and Hong Kong. They were formed in New York City under the direction of Kim Bora, a Columbia graduate student, and her collaborators Karin Kuroda and Samantha Shao.
The members take singing and dancing lessons every single day, study Korean under Kim for two hours a day, and even attending "cuteness classes."
EXP started out as an experimental project of Kim in her university, and the group's name was derived from the first three letters of the word "experiment." The "I'm Making a Boy Band (IMMABB) Project" was developed to showcase concepts such as gender roles in pop culture and their effect on other issues in the modern society.
EXP has already released two singles, "LUV/WRONG" and "Feel Like This" since their introduction one year ago, but the public reception has not been always positive for the group. Some K-Pop fans claim that the group is only doing the K-Pop concept as a gimmick, and one of the members even said that EXP members had to deal with racial and homophobic attacks from the public. They also heard that their name is so similar to that of one of K-Pop's top male group, EXO, drawing some negative feedback from its fans.
Despite all these, the group is still very much willing and hopeful to have their debut in the homeland of K-Pop, South Korea.
