k-pop
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JENNIE Is Learning to Sign Her Own Name
After a decade of executing other people’s plans with exquisite precision, the BLACKPINK member founded a label, made Ruby and discovered that creative freedom comes with paperwork, doubt and a much more interesting kind of spotlight.
ROSÉ Found Her Own Voice by Letting Rosie Speak
She crossed three countries, four years of training and one giant girl group to make a record intimate enough to carry her family nickname. Then a Korean drinking game became a worldwide chorus.
How SEVENTEEN Made 13 Voices Sound Like One Idea
Thirteen members, three specialist units and one stubbornly coherent team. SEVENTEEN turned division of labor into a creative signature - and made the arithmetic sing.
LE SSERAFIM Learned That Fearlessness Is Better With the Fear Left In
Five performers arrived under a name made from “I’m Fearless.” Four years later, their sharper idea is more human: courage becomes convincing when it admits what it costs.
Stray Kids Built the Machine - Then Taught It to Roar
Eight performers, three in-house producers and one stubborn instinct: make the music sound unmistakably theirs. The result is a catalog that turned creative control into a global career.
Eight Voices, One Relentless Pulse: How ATEEZ Built a Stage Bigger Than the Room
ATEEZ began with a mailed mixtape, eight distinct temperaments and no guaranteed shortcut. Their ascent now reads like a study in collective ambition - choreographed in conversation, sharpened onstage and carried across borders by the fans who answered back.
Seungjoon Lee Spent a Decade Learning How Close a Concert Can Get
The AMAZE co-founder began with a grand theory about the screen after mobile. Ten years, several pivots and a cinema full of headsets later, the idea that survived is disarmingly simple: put the fan where the expensive seat cannot.
Brian Nam
Brian Nam is the co-founder and CEO of DIVE Studios, a Gen Z media company born from K-pop and built for global fandoms. A former Division I soccer recruit and finance-track Columbia grad, he walked away from an elite private equity offer to build a podcast network with his brother, the K-pop star Eric Nam. DIVE has grown into a multi-platform media company spanning Seoul and Los Angeles, with hit shows like The Daebak Show, hundreds of millions of views, and a wellness app, Mindset. He is a Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree.
REI AMI
REI AMI (born Sarah Yeeun Lee) is a Korean-American singer, rapper, and genre-bending artist from Germantown, Maryland, who blends hip-hop, R&B, alternative pop, and pop-punk aggression into a sound entirely her own. After breaking through with Sub Urban's viral 'Freak' (2020) and debuting with her mixtape FOIL (2021), she catapulted to global stardom in 2025 as Zoey in Netflix's animated film KPop Demon Hunters, voicing and performing as part of the fictional K-pop trio HUNTR/X. Their single 'Golden' became Netflix's most-watched film's signature track, hit #1 on the Billboard Hot 100, and won both a Grammy and an Oscar — firsts for any K-pop song.