By Sarah Rainey For The Mail On Sunday
22:04 25 Nov 2023, up to date 01:01 26 Nov 2023
With their demure smiles, the 4 younger ladies had been the image of decorum as they lined up final week to satisfy King Charles in Buckingham Palace’s grandest room, the place Russian Tsar Nicholas I used to be as soon as a visitor.
For many twentysomethings, being awarded an honorary MBE – on this case, in recognition for his or her work as local weather change ambassadors – by the British monarch could be the best second of their lives.
However for Lisa Manoban, Rosé Park, Jisoo Kim and Jennie Kim, members of the Korean lady band Blackpink, this newest honour represents a mere footnote in a profession sprinkled with accolades: quite a few high ten albums and No1 hits, international sell-out excursions, music awards by the bucketload and collaborations with worldwide superstars together with Woman Gaga.
They dominate the world of South Korean pop music – extra generally often known as Okay-Pop – and stand atop an empire price £50 million, spanning not solely music however vogue, magnificence and leisure, which has seen them dubbed ‘the largest lady band on this planet’.
It’s possible you’ll not have heard of Blackpink, or their Okay-Pop music fashion (greatest identified for Gangnam Model, the 2012 viral dance tune by rapper Psy), because it hasn’t correctly taken off in Britain.
A cross between pop, rap and R’n’B, with lyrics in Korean and English, it appeals extra to American and Asian audiences, with a cutesy picture closely marketed in direction of teenage followers.
However globally it is enormous. That is largely as a consequence of social media. Blackpink, for instance, have 57 million Instagram followers – 3 times greater than Madonna.
Look on-line and you may see totally different photos of the 4 younger ladies who posed modestly at Buckingham Palace, with miniskirts and suspenders, latex platform boots and provocative music movies.
This raunchy look is a part of a fastidiously curated picture, churned out on the conveyor belt of manufactured pop acts that the South Korean music trade – the sixth greatest on this planet – has develop into so adept at creating prior to now twenty years.
In addition to Blackpink, there’s Grammy-nominated boy band BTS (who offered extra albums than Taylor Swift in 2020 however disbanded to finish their navy service), eight-piece Ladies’ Era and newcomers NewJeans, whose 5 members are aged simply 14 to 18.
Every shares the identical polished public persona: dance strikes completely choreographed, music movies resembling big-budget blockbusters and never a single blemish, wrinkle or hair misplaced on their alabaster complexions.
However behind the unspoilt facade there are widespread issues a couple of ‘darkish facet’ to Okay-Pop.
Bullying, abuse and exploitation are mentioned to be commonplace, with kids subjected to gruelling coaching regimes and every day weigh-ins, in addition to being pressurised into cosmetic surgery and made to signal contracts that imply their each transfer is managed.
Euodias, a 25-year-old YouTube star from Sunderland who’s half-Korean, had first-hand expertise of dwelling in a Okay-Pop ‘coaching camp’ when she moved to South Korea as a toddler to observe her dream of turning into a pop star.
She describes the regimented existence, dwelling in a constructing owned by her administration firm, as ‘some type of science experiment’.
She says: ‘On a typical day we would wake at 5am to get in some further dance apply earlier than college began at 8am.
‘When the college day ended, we would return to the corporate to be educated in singing and dancing. Trainees would practise till 11pm or later.’
Aside from attending college, she says, they weren’t allowed out with out permission, which was normally refused anyway.
Relationship was banned, as had been unscheduled visits from pals or family.
Whereas Euodias slept in a dorm, some, in a gaggle deemed much less more likely to succeed, needed to sleep on mats on the ground.
She says few complained as they had been all bold and since the corporate’s angle was that ‘every part we skilled was a part of studying the self-discipline wanted to be a Okay-Pop idol’.
Fairly than use their very own names, she says kids got a quantity and a stage identify to match the Okay-Pop character kind the corporate had chosen for them.
Blackpink spent between 4 and 6 years in such a regime, dwelling in what band member Jennie, 27, has in comparison with ‘boarding college’. She has mentioned: ‘It was like 14 hours a day, simply coaching. It was actually harsh.’
Euodias, who left the South Korean capital Seoul after two years to return to the UK, says that the women’ look was the topic of intense scrutiny, with weekly weigh-ins going down in entrance of the entire group.
‘Weight was the fixed obsession,’ she says. ‘Everybody was required to be no heavier than 47kg (7st 6lb), no matter their age or peak.
‘If above the designated weight, they’d ration your meals. Generally they’d take away total meals and ‘chubby’ trainees would simply be given water.
‘Ravenous your self was normalised.
‘Some trainees had been anorexic or bulimic, and many ladies did not have intervals.’
She says she handed out twice throughout dance classes as a consequence of dehydration and lack of meals.
‘Typically we had to assist carry unconscious trainees again to the dorms.’
There are lots of different surprising testimonies. Momo Hirai, 27, of
Okay-Pop band Twice, has spoken about consuming nothing however ice cubes in a bid to drop pounds for a TV present.
‘I used to be informed I needed to lose 7kg it doesn’t matter what,’ she mentioned in a 2020 interview.
‘That was the one method to be on the present. So I did not eat something till that date and went to the health club on a regular basis.’
The acute food regimen left her vomiting, crying and fearing she would die of hunger.
‘When mendacity on my mattress, making an attempt to sleep, I used to be scared that I won’t get up.’
For picture, within the distorted, industrial world of making a Okay-Pop star, is every part. Many have cosmetic surgery.
With this obsession with youthfulness, it isn’t shocking that the children appear like they’ve come off an meeting line: all excessive cheekbones, excellent noses and luscious pink pouts.
Although not one of the Blackpink members has admitted to having surgical procedure, they seem to have undergone dramatic transformations since childhood.
In a latest Netflix documentary, Blackpink: Mild Up The Sky, the 4 shared household pictures displaying them as plump-cheeked, wide-eyed kids.
Some stars, although, admit to surgical procedure. Lee Joo-won, or ‘JooE’, a former member of lady group Momoland, admitted to a nostril job in 2018, whereas Sulli, a South Korean singer who took her personal life in 2019 aged simply 25, had spoken of getting eyelid surgical procedure.
Kim Min-seok, a former coach at Blackpink’s label YG Leisure, has mentioned surgical procedure is inspired.
He mentioned: ‘A very powerful factor is look.
‘If a lady has a nasty face and physique, the issue will be mounted with cosmetic surgery.’
This could embrace lightening the pores and skin to make musicians seem ‘whiter’ and extra Western.
Inevitably there are allegations of jealousy and bullying amongst wannabes. Auditions – which have a hit price of 700-1 – are cutthroat and solely about ten per cent of hopefuls are chosen to ‘debut’ on the music scene.
As soon as signed to a administration firm, they are often contracted for as much as ten years.
However a report by South Korea’s Honest Commerce Fee in 2017 in contrast such agreements to ‘slave contracts’ and ordered businesses to alter punitive clauses reminiscent of these which fined musicians for breaching phrases and which unfairly redistributed their earnings.
Dr Haekyung Um, senior lecturer in music on the College of Liverpool, says that the relationships between artists and their administration have now develop into much less repressive, however factors out that the leisure companies make investments a lot money and time in creating stars of the longer term.
She compares the rigorous and aggressive coaching regimes to these undertaken by ballerinas or live performance pianists.
Dr Sarah Keith, a music and media lecturer at Macquarie College, Sydney, who researches Okay-Pop, says many criticisms – ‘exploitation, abuse and coercion’ – are ‘endemic’.
‘There may be typically a give attention to the ‘darkish facet’ of Okay-Pop, which overshadows the inventive and constructive points,’ she says.
Lee Hark-joon, a Korean journalist, has mentioned life for such kids is ‘mechanical’ and ‘spartan’: ‘They seldom have an opportunity to develop a traditional college life or regular social relationships.’
And the influence will be brutal, particularly with out the help of family and friends, who’re reportedly saved at arms’ size (Euodias remembers getting a 15-minute every day cellphone name together with her mum again in England).
In 2019, The New York Occasions uncovered ‘the painful facet of being a Okay-Pop idol’, after two feminine stars – Sulli, whose actual identify was Choi Jin-ri, and 28-year-old Goo Hara – took their very own lives.
Two years earlier, Jonghyun, lead singer of the boy band Shinee, was discovered lifeless in his house, aged 27, with a word that mentioned he was ‘damaged from inside’.
And in 2010, Park Yong-ha, a profitable 32-year-old singer and actor, killed himself amid stories of profession pressures.
Describing the Okay-Pop trade as ‘a high-risk, high-reward system’, Dr Keith says it’s a logical results of the social and industrial circumstances of Okay-Pop’s manufacturing.
‘Being a Okay-Pop idol has develop into a profession alternative for a lot of younger individuals, not solely in Korea however globally.
Nicely-known artists are the ‘face’ of Korea, and Okay-Pop is massively influential on the economic system.
This not solely consists of music and live performance ticket gross sales, however the best way Okay-Pop celeb is used to advertise Korean items and companies reminiscent of Hyundai automobiles, and present Korea as a gorgeous journey vacation spot.
Assembly King Charles at Buckingham Palace final week was the most recent high-profile milestone in Blackpink’s profession. Already, a video of their 2020 hit How You Like That has been watched 1.5 billion instances – 3 times the inhabitants of South Korea.
However with their superstardom, says Dr Um, there’s intense strain to be ambassadors for his or her nation.
‘They bear an enormous duty to be good artists and good individuals,’ she says.
‘It is a very excessive ethical expectation from society: you will by no means see them doing medicine or misbehaving.
‘They’ve to indicate their goodness, in how they behave in direction of others and in contributing in direction of social causes.’
Certainly, Blackpink’s latest environmental endeavours are simply a part of their philanthropic actions – they’ve donated greater than £300,000 to charitable causes, together with help for low-income single-parent households and pure catastrophe reduction.
Throughout a speech in entrance of them final week, King Charles mentioned: ‘I can solely admire how they will prioritise these important points, in addition to being international superstars.’
Nonetheless, for the billions of Blackpink’s admirers, the Okay-Pop pack lead a life-style that’s glamorous and gilded – though the highway to get there’s something however.