Hive, a full-fledged targeting of the US, the mainland of pop, with the K-pop production system at the forefront

Hive is going to target the US market with the K-pop production system.

Hive x Geffen Records, a joint venture between Hive and Universal Music Group (UMG), will reveal the faces of the global girl group audition project participants at 11 am (Korean time) on the 29th. In 2021, Hive established a joint venture with Geffen Records, a label under UMG, and embarked on a global rookie discovery project.

The name of the audition project in the US is 'The Debut: Dream Academy'. The name was given in the sense that young people from all over the world with the same dream of becoming musicians are challenging together toward the goal of debuting. 'The Debut: Dream Academy' begins its 12-week journey starting with the content release on this day.

Chairman Bang Shi-hyeok's belief that Hive's large-scale audition abroad is not simply K-pop, but that the 'K-pop production system' should be globalized. In fact, Chairman Bang has been residing in the US for nearly two years and is leading the 'The Debut: Dream Academy' project. In a conversation with John Jannick, CEO of Geffen Records, prior to the release of the content, Chairman Bang said, “I had a dream of providing talented young people around the world with the opportunity to become members of a wonderful group based on K-pop. I thought it had to be the US market for this to happen.”

Applicants from all over the world flocked to this audition program, in which Hive's artist production method was put into operation. Over the past two years, 120,000 people applied, and 70,000 of them were so enthusiastic that they sent an audition video within a week after the announcement was made. Among them, the debut candidates selected through face-to-face and non-face-to-face auditions will go through a 12-week competition, and then the final debut members will be confirmed through live broadcasting.

The competition process, which will be released to the world through YouTube, is expected to be a competitive structure in good faith, reminiscent of the Olympics. Viewers around the world will be able to watch the entire process of trainees from different geographical and racial backgrounds competing, growing, and achieving within the K-pop production system.

Hive plans to mobilize all of the US local infrastructure secured through mergers and acquisitions (M&A) for this project. The network accumulated in the course of global activities of artists belonging to BTS, Seventeen, TOMORROW X TOGETHER, Le Seraphim, and New Jeans is also fully utilized.

'The Debut: Dream Academy' is expected to serve as an opportunity to fully transplant the legacy of 30 years of K-pop to the world's largest pop market, the United States. Chairman Bang Shi-hyeok explained, "For K-pop to truly become mainstream in the world, it must become 'just pop' without the K."

Regarding this, Hive said, “It is possible for K-pop to go beyond K and become pop itself in two ways. One is that K-pop created in Korea is becoming global, and the other is that the production system itself takes root overseas and expands the base by targeting the mainland pop market.”

“In the case of the former, various achievements such as BTS, Seventeen, TOMORROW X TOGETHER, ENHYPEN, Le Seraphim, and New Jeans have been produced, but now producers are discovering local talent through the K-pop production system overseas, It is time to succeed in globalization of the method, and 'The Debut: Dream Academy' is meaningful in that it is the first challenge to bet on the latter."

Reporter Yoon Jun-ho, Ten Asia delo410@tenasia.co.kr