K-pop singers Lisa, left, and Nichkhun / Courtesy of YG Entertainment and JYP Entertainment

• ●Lisa, from popular K-pop girl band BLACKPINK is flying high 

• ●Other Thai K-pop members have paved the way 

If anyone were to claim dominance in the K-pop girl band universe, it would undoubtedly be Blackpink. And its member Lisa in particular is flying high since her solo debut last fall. Her song “Money” made it onto the Billboard 100 in November, a rare feat for a solo Asian singer. The song is from her first solo album “LALISA,” released in September. The title comes from her legal name: Lalisa Manoban. Each of the music videos for those two songs has racked up more than 400 million views on YouTube. 

It’s a stellar performance so far by the artist who hails from Thailand and trained at the YG Entertainment agency. Foreign K-pop performers are not a new phenomenon any more; the genre has evolved over the years and embraced more fans from the far corners of the world. Lisa, whose popularity has been soaring, is one of the numerous Thai K-pop stars. There is Ten, who sings with boy groups from SM Entertainment; BamBam, a former member of GOT7 at JYP; and Thai-American Nichkhun of the boy band 2PM with JYP Entertainment. Chinese and Japanese artists are also included in K-pop groups. 

What these stars do is bring and integrate their cultural and personal traits into the K-pop template. For example, in “LALISA,” Lisa sings and raps in Korean and English. The choreography in the music video is predominantly K-pop, but there is a scene where she pays tribute to her heritage by wearing a golden outfit from embroidered Thai silk in patterns inspired by her home province as well as an elaborate traditional headdress. 

“Nichkhun’s success had a big impact on his band 2PM, which rode his popularity to the top of the charts in Thailand a decade ago. Thus Korean entertainment agencies have been recruiting Thai members – as they did for the girl band CLC,” said Lee Gyu-tag, professor of cultural anthropology at George Mason University Korea. Cube Entertainment hired the former CLC member Sorn from Thailand. 

“While rocky relations negatively affected cultural exports to China and Japan in 2019 and 2020, those exports to Southeast Asia actually went up during that time,” Lee added. 

“Also, Thailand has a certain cultural influence in Southeast Asia. While entertainment agencies have their eyes on the next rising markets of Indonesia and Vietnam for K-pop, the number of subscribers paying for YouTube in Thailand is overwhelming,” Lee said. 

Hong Seok-kyeong, a communications professor at Seoul National University said the seeming surge of Thai K-pop members may well be only one facet of K-pop. 

“The small nature of the Korean music market means that K-pop has been looking out toward the global market from the beginning. And K-pop has developed to the extent that it is able to incorporate different music sources and influences and create a final output with choreography that has a distinct Korean, or K-pop, touch,” Hong said. 

She expects K-pop will comprise even more diverse nationalities and groups, citing the Filipino boy band SB19, which was put together by a Korean producer. 

“Korea has grown to be the third important ‘producer country’ of cultural content, following in the steps of the United States and Japan, and K-pop is at the forefront of that content. Don’t be surprised by its global nature,” Hong added. 

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