K-pop has become a multibillion-dollar global success. This growth has been driven by viral choreography, high-concept music videos and a highly passionate fanbase that functions like an unofficial global marketing team.
Wanting to expand its international appeal, the genre is opening up to more non-Korean idols (the name for K-pop performers) than ever. This desire led to Korean entertainment group Hybe (creators of mega-group BTS) partnering with the American record label Geffen Records (a division of Universal Music Group) to discover and launch global pop groups using the intensive K-pop training system. This collaboration produced the reality show Pop Star Academy from which the global K-pop girl group Katseye was created.
The group debuted in 2023 and consists of members from South Korea, the Philippines, the US and Switzerland. Out of this project also came the group Saint Satine, which features members from Japan, the US and Brazil.
There is a huge expectation from some fans for K-pop idols to flawlessly nail complex choreography, maintain immaculate visuals, and project a sort of unbreakable hardworking image. However, these groups have faced teething problems, including Saint Satine recently losing one member and Katseye having one member on a temporary break. And they aren’t the only international groups to experience these problems.
Despite having all the markers of K-pop groups (such as singing in Korean and going through the rigorous K-pop training system) fans are questioning whether these groups can even be considered K-pop at all.
So what is going on with the K in K-pop?
One non-Korean member
The global rise of Korean pop (K-pop) music in the last decade has introduced many of us to groups like Blackpink, Stray Kids and Twice, all of which feature at least one member born and raised outside of South Korea. While some acts with all-Korean lineups have attained huge international success, such as BTS and Ateez, it is almost the rule that every group has a non-Korean member, and the number of foreign idols is increasing.
Though it might seem like the term K-pop encapsulates something uniquely Korean, the term itself was coined elsewhere. The words for Korean in Korean don’t even begin with a K, instead they are Daehan Minguk or Hanguk. Also, in Korea the music genre is known as “gayo”. K-pop is actually a borrowed term, which first caught on in the early 2000s with the success of artists like BoA and TVXQ on Japan’s Oricon Chart.
From the start of K-pop in the 90s, groups consisted of multiple nationalities. S.E.S., who debuted in 1997, consisted of three members, one of whom is from Japan. Korean Americans have featured in K-pop groups for years, including Girls’ Generation members Jessica and Tiffany, or U-KISS member Kevin.
The most common nationalities for foreign members of K-pop groups are Chinese and Japanese. Around 10% of the top 100 idol groups (and their 645 members) are not Korean. The advantages of foreign-born members is that they will boost support for their group from their home countries, increasing success overseas.
In more recent years, not only have groups incorporated a larger number of non-Korean members, the nations from which those non-Korean members originate has diversified, too. FIFTY FIFTY member Athena is from Sweden, Secret Number’s Dita is Indonesian, and former DRIPPIN member Alex is German. These foreign members are trained in the intense Korean system, and are all generally fluent in Korean. However, until recently these foreign members were always ethnically Asian.
This is where groups like Katseye and Saint Satine feel different. However, another issue fans have with these groups is how many are not silently putting up with the high pressure and sometimes abusive industry practices. Research into K-pop fandom has found that there is an expectation that idols display pristine behaviour and endless gratitude
Why Swedish member Lexie left Saint Satine has yet to be officially announced. However, Lexie also dropped out of Dream Academy citing the high-pressure environment and how the processes’s focus on pitting girls against each other no longer aligned with her personal values and aspirations
Swiss Katseye member Manon Bannerman is also currently on a hiatus, which is not particularly unusual in K-pop due to the gruelling schedules, high pressure from the Korean general public and the high risk of illness or injury.
The Katseye singer has stated her hiatus is to benefit her health and wellbeing. Fans, however, have different theories, speculating her departure was racially motivated as Bannerman is the only black member of the group. Such is the importance of fans and their opinion in K-pop, the group’s label Hybe were prompted to release a statement refuting allegations the issues had anything to do with race.
However, another theory is that Bannerman is on hiatus due to conflicts between her and her groupmates and management company. If confirmed, this would be unusual in K-pop, where the image of a group’s cohesion is paramount.
Then there was VCHA, an all-American girl group created by JYP, one of the most successful K-pop management companies, in 2023. The group rebranded in 2025 to Girlset after the departure of two members. One of the former members is in a lawsuit with JYP over alleged mistreatment. This included the allegation that cameras were installed in the group’s shared kitchen so the company could monitor what they ate, among other abusive and exploitative working conditions.
So far, then, the experiments with global groups have had mixed results, and no global group has reached the acclaim or commercial success equivalent to a successful K-pop group as of yet.
The question of whether a group can be considered K-pop if it consists of entirely or primarily non-Korean members is relevant now more than ever. Most K-pop fans do not regard Katseye as K-pop. This is despite the similarities in genre and choreography style to their K-pop counterparts, with athletic and synchronised dance moves paired with hip-hop and pop tunes and embedded rap sections.
It appears that for most fans, being, or at least speaking, Korean is a central part of being a K-pop act, even if a group is produced under K-pop’s unique production pipeline.
In future, it is likely that K-pop management companies will continue to experiment with the global model, but questions of how this is received by the core K-pop fanbase, as well as whether the training system used to engineer K-pop groups can be replicated on global artists, remains to be seen.
Caitlin Marie Hogan receives funding from the Economic and Social Research Council via the LISS-DTP.