Internationally Known Producers & Composers Turn to K-pop

Girl group 2NE1 made waves last year when footage of them working with Black Eyed Peas' will.i.am hit national television. (YG Entertainment)

An increasing number of leading American and European music producers and composers are working with Korean entertainment companies, which in turn is fostering even more interest in Korean pop music globally, an article in The Korea Herald points out.

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The article begins: "When footage of The Black Eyed Peas' will.i.am working with girl group 2NE1 hit national television last year, it was a defining moment for the K-pop industry. Though the domestic industry had been enlisting the talent of overseas producers and composers for years, this collaboration took the whole situation to another level, not just in terms of exposure but also in terms of star power".

Los Angeles-based Xperimental Entertainment, founded by William Pyon and Kim Young-hu, "currently counts South Korean music goliath S.M. Entertainment as one of its biggest clients and has also worked with YG Entertainment, the company behind major K-pop acts BIGBANG and 2NE1". Pyon told the newspaper that the amount of business based on hooking overseas composers and producers up with K-pop artists has grown over the years. If before, it accounted for about 5 to 10 percent of their business, now it takes up 50 percent. Xperimental also has branches in Seoul and Tokyo.

Another example The Korea Herald provides is that of Lars Halvor Jensen and Martin Michael Larsson, whose DEEKAY Music – with studios in Copenhagen (Denmark) and Los Angeles – worked on Girls' Generation's "Hoot" and SHINee's "Hello". DEEKAY has also written and produced for such major artists as Diddy and Ashley Tisdale.

"Nowadays a lot of producers, they know who these artists are", Pyon told the newspaper concerning international recognition of K-pop artists. "It's telling me that the K-pop scene has really evolved into almost a mainstream aspect of the industry".