K-pop has become a part of the mainstream thanks to groups like BTS and Blackpink. This Friday, Apple TV+ is premiering K-Pop Idols, a docuseries that features three different K-pop artists including Jessi, Blackswan and Cravity.
K-Pop Idols follows Cravity, an up-and-coming boy group; Blackswan, a multinational K-pop girl group; and Jessi, who is touring as an independent artist after leaving P Nation (the record label from K-pop megastar Psy).
The series explores the daily lives of these K-pop idols, whether it’s the strict training schedule or embracing the fanbase at their concerts.
“I feel like that’s actually very good, and I’m very happy that people can see that,” Blackswan’s Fatou tells Nerd Reactor about the highs and lows of being a K-pop idol. “And I hope when they see that, they live with a feeling like, ‘Okay, they’re humans too. They have the good parts, the bad parts, you know, they get scared, they’re sad, they’re mad, they’re happy.'”
Each group deals with drama in its own way, and with the new Blackswan members, they’re still learning to become better communicators.
“We’ve learned a lot of how to communicate with each other,” Blackswan’s Gabi said. “We’re still learning also every, every day, learning something different. Talking about it between the four of us, whenever something happens, or we feel like when something needs to be solved, we just, ‘Let’s sit down.’ Or just the four of us, or just the two of us or three, depends on how it is, and we talk about it before it explodes.”
The creative team wanted to tell the narratives of different people at different levels of the K-pop industry.
“It’s kind of like this hierarchical pyramid, and so we have, Jessi at the top there, and then you’ve got this new boy group from one of the larger agencies, Starship, and then you have this small kind of family-run mom and pop operation that is DR Music, kind of duking it out towards the lower end of the spectrum,” said Bradley Camp, one of the executive producers of K-Pop Idols. “But it’s like they’ve got the grit and the moxie, right? That’s hopefully going to get them to the top.”
One of the important things the team wanted to convey in the docuseries is a genuine human story.
“We wanted to utilize our footage in a way that really told everyone’s personal, human stories and their struggles as genuinely as we could,” Executive Producer Elise Chung said. “And sometimes it is those moments that speak louder than words. It’s like, ‘Yeah, we’re definitely keeping our eye out for moments like that.’ As Brad was saying, we wanted to show everyone’s journey in trying to achieve success, but also, the more important part or not more important part, but the other part was their human story. And I feel like it’s those moments that you were just mentioning that we really wanted to focus on and shine a light on as well.”
K-Pop Idols premiers on Apple TV+ on August 30, 2024.
The interview was edited for clarity and length.
