MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
1Verse is the first K-pop group in the world to feature North Korean defectors. Its other members have roots in Laos, Thailand, China, Japan and the U.S. They're the latest K-pop idols to market multiculturalism in this cutthroat industry. Haeryun Kang tells us more about this unusual group from Seoul.
HAERYUN KANG: (Non-English language spoken).
1VERSE: (Non-English language spoken).
KANG: When I meet 1Verse at their agency in Gangnam, a ritzy district in Seoul, the first thing I ask is how they overcome language barriers.
SEOK KIM: (Non-English language spoken).
(LAUGHTER)
KANG: Body language. That's vocalist Seok Kim, one of the North Korean members.
HYUK YU: Hello. My name is Hyuk. I'm from North Korea. I'm the rapper of 1Verse.
KANG: There's also the main dancer, Aito Murata from Japan, Nathan Kousol, a Lao Thai computer science major from Arkansas and last but not least...
KENNY HAO: Hi, my name is Kenny Hao. I'm from California, and I'm the personality hire (laughter).
KANG: This kind of diversity is no longer unusual in K-pop. Now, they all live together in a dorm in Seoul, chasing the K-pop dream.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ORDINARY PERSON")
1VERSE: (Rapping) Look, I said I wonder who I'd be, 'cause heaven ain't for me.
KANG: The five members, who go professionally by their first names, all listened to different music as kids. Kenny grew up with The Beatles. Aito loved Justin Bieber. Nathan listened to Lao and Thai music. And the North Koreans?
KIM: (Speaking Korean).
KANG: Seok, who defected in 2019, listened to K-pop, illegally downloaded on USBs. He's from Ryanggang province, bordering China, where foreign goods are smuggled in more easily. But Hyuk lived much further inland in Kyongsong, a poorer region.
YU: (Speaking Korean).
KANG: Starting when he was just 9 years old, Hyuk cut down trees and even stole to survive, he says. Music was a luxury. The little he heard was state-sanctioned, like this revolution song.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
1VERSE: (Singing in non-English language).
KANG: Hyuk was the first trainee to join 1Verse. It took executive producer Michelle Cho six years to find all the members. She tells me about conceiving of the group with her co-founder, Joe Lim.
MICHELLE CHO: Joe was thinking about, hey, do you think it'll be cool to, like, do a K-pop group with some North Koreans? Why not? If there's talented enough people, there is no reason why we can't do it.
KANG: Back then, Hyuk was working in restaurants and factories. When Michelle Cho met Hyuk, she said she heard talent in his voice. From there, her agency, Singing Beetle, held multiple auditions for the others. For each round, they received hundreds of applications from all over the world, despite being a small agency just starting out.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
1VERSE: (Speaking Korean).
KANG: 1Verse already has over half a million followers on TikTok, and their first single isn't even out yet. Online, they're very active, making silly reels, singing cover songs together, like "Fools" by Troye Sivan.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "FOOLS")
1VERSE: (Singing) Only fools fall for you.
YU: (Speaking Korean).
KANG: Before defecting, Hyuk had never heard of South Korea, let alone Troye Sivan. He was just 13 in 2013 when he left his hometown, just 200 miles from Seoul, across one of the most fortified borders in the world. Today, he is one of some 30,000 North Korean defectors in South Korea.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ORDINARY PERSON")
1VERSE: (Rapping) How to be one, just like an ordinary person. But can you show me...
KANG: This song, "Ordinary Person," was cowritten by Hyuk. He raps in English, true to K-pop's strategy to reach a global audience. This is the only song the group has gone public with, as a teaser. Like other K-pop groups, 1Verse is very secretive about its official debut music. They won't tell me anything - the title, the lyrics, the dates, even the genres. Nathan just cheekily says...
NATHAN KOUSOL: We can't wait to share our music (laughter).
KANG: We may know their multicultural backstories, but for now, the most important part of 1Verse - their sounds - is up to our imagination.
For NPR News, I'm Haeryun Kang from Seoul. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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