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      BTS Ponders Its Future, and South Korea’s Economy Warily Takes Note

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      The band’s label saw its stock price plunge, and the possibility that the K-pop group won’t tour as pandemic restrictions ease threatens to reverberate through South Korea’s economy.The fallout from BTS’s announcement on Tuesday that the K-pop juggernaut would be taking a break as members explore solo careers was immediate and drastic.In just a day, the stock price of the group’s management label, HYBE, plummeted 28 percent to 139,000 won — or $108 — its lowest price since the company went public nearly two years ago, shedding $1.7 billion in market value. The stock price has barely moved since.The drastic plunge underscores how South Korea’s best-selling boy band has become not only a cultural sensation but also a powerful stakeholder in South Korea’s economy.Since the group’s debut in 2013, BTS has raked in billions of dollars through album sales, concert tickets and social media. Its YouTube channel alone, which is the 20th largest in the world, can generate up to $2 million a month. By 2020, the group was contributing $3.5 billion annually to the nation’s economy, according to the Hyundai Research Institute.Japanese fans of BTS sharing mementos of the band at a cafe in Seoul on Wednesday.Kim Hong-Ji/ReutersEven during the pandemic, which devastated the live concert industry, BTS drove a 58 percent increase in HYBE’s revenue, according to the company’s year-end reports for 2021. The label raked in a 1.3 trillion won last year, nearly a billion U.S. dollars.The group’s financial contribution to South Korea’s economy had only been expected to grow as pandemic restrictions eased, according to the Korea Culture and Tourism Institute, which predicted that a single BTS concert could generate upward of $500 million or more.News of the group’s planned hiatus convulsed the internet once the group posted its video announcement, which drew over 16 million views in two days. The group’s fans, who call themselves Army, swarmed social media in expressing support — and anguished distress — over the news.“Thank you BTS for being our home, for your beautiful music that enlightens our life, for your love & happiness to us,” one Twitter user posted. “We’ll support you. We’re always here for you. We’ll wait for you. ARMY FOREVER. We love you.”Fans were particularly confused by the term “hiatus,” which was used in the English translations in the original video. Reports in South Korean media outlets were quick to link the announcement to the fact that Jin, the oldest member of the group, would need to enlist for mandatory military service by the end of this year.Speculation about the group’s possible disbandment led to a quick backpedaling of statements by the label and the group members themselves.News organizations reported the group was not taking a hiatus, but that group members were pivoting to focus more on their individual careers. The group will “remain active in various different formats,” according to the statement.RM, the group’s leader, posted on the social media site Weverse on Thursday, saying that many people had sent him messages assuming the group was breaking up.A mural depicting RM, the leader of BTS, in Goyang, South Korea. Anthony Wallace/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images“Although it’s not like I didn’t anticipate this or was oblivious that this could happen, I still feel bitter,” he said, explaining that his intentions were to communicate openly with fans on the group’s reflections of the past decade and not to announce that the group was disbanding.Jungkook, the youngest BTS member, also tried to clarify matters in a live video stream on Thursday. “We don’t have any thoughts of breaking up,” he said, adding that BTS still had plans to perform in the future.In Tuesday’s announcement video, members gathered around a table and spoke candidly about the intense pressures they face to constantly churn out music and deliver, ultimately leading to their decision to temporarily pursue solo careers.“I felt like I was trapped and couldn’t get out,” said Namjoon, who explained that he felt the years of constantly being in the spotlight as a K-pop idol didn’t leave him much room for personal growth. More

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      BTS Says It’s Taking a Break, but Promises It’s Not Permanent

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      Members of the K-pop juggernaut said in a video conversation that they wanted time to explore their individual artistic identities.After nearly a decade together, the seven members of BTS need some time apart.The Korean boy band released a video on Tuesday discussing the members’ desire to take a break from their current arrangement in order to explore their individual music careers; the move, they said, would also take some pressure off their lives as international pop sensations.“We’ve talked among ourselves several times and we believe it’s good to take some time apart,” J-Hope, one of the members, said in the video. “I hope that people don’t think negatively about this step and that they see this is a healthy, important part of our plan that will let BTS grow stronger.”But messages of support and heartbreak from the group’s dedicated fan base — known as Army — became tinged with confusion on Tuesday when news organizations reported that the entertainment company associated with the Grammy-nominated band had released a statement saying that BTS was not, in fact, taking a hiatus and that its members were simply focusing more on solo projects. The statement said BTS will “remain active in various different formats.”The BTS video was released as the K-pop group celebrated the ninth anniversary of its debut. While chatting and reminiscing over a meal, the members — J-Hope, RM, Jin, Suga, Jimin, V and Jungkook — touched on some of the challenges they were facing as artists, including the pressure to keep churning out hit songs.“I should be writing about what I’m feeling and the stories I want to tell,” Suga said, “but I’m just forcefully squeezing out words because I need to satisfy someone.”RM, who often speaks for the group in English — including at a recent White House visit — said it was challenging for him to balance his own artistic work with the demands of acting as a kind of group spokesman.The singers seemed to agree that some time focusing on their solo careers would strengthen their future collaborations and would ultimately be in the service of their fans. And future solo performances are already on the books: Earlier this month, Lollapalooza, a music festival in Chicago, announced that J-Hope would be a headliner at the event this summer.“I want to keep performing,” RM said, “but I feel like I’ve lost direction.” More

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      K-Pop Star Luna to Make Broadway Debut in ‘KPOP’ the Musical

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      The show, which had an Off Broadway run in 2017, will begin previews this fall at Circle in the Square Theater.“KPOP,” a high-energy multimedia show about Korean pop stars, will transfer to Broadway this fall.And at New York’s Korean Cultural Center on Wednesday morning, it was announced that the K-pop star Luna will be making her Broadway debut as the star of the show.“Anyone who has followed my career knows that musical theater has always been a driving passion of mine,” Luna said at the announcement. “Broadway represents the pinnacle of achievement in my profession, so being able to bring my culture to the fans who flock here from all over the world to see a Broadway show is the honor of my life.”The musical, conceived by Woodshed Collective and Jason Kim, had an Off Broadway run in 2017 at A.R.T./New York, where it was an immersive performance piece that occupied two floors of a building in Hell’s Kitchen. Kim wrote the book, and music and lyrics are by Helen Park and Max Vernon. “The world we explore in ‘KPOP’ is cutthroat, relentless in its pursuit of perfection, full of passionate, hugely ambitious artists, and ultimately a source of joy,” Park said on Wednesday.The show’s Off Broadway director, Teddy Bergman, and its choreographer, Jennifer Weber, will return for the Broadway production. Previews are to start on Oct. 13 at the Circle in the Square Theater; opening night is set for Nov. 20.Luna began her career in 2009 as the main vocalist and lead dancer of the K-pop girl group f(x) — one of the first groups to cross over into the United States — and went on to establish herself as a musical theater actress. In 2011, the singer, born Park Sun-young, starred as Elle Woods in the South Korean production of “Legally Blonde.”The same year she also starred as Violet Sanford in a musical adaptation of “Coyote Ugly” in Seoul. Since then, she has had lead roles in “High School Musical on Stage!” (2013), “In the Heights” (2015-16) and “Mamma Mia!” (2019-20).The cast of “KPOP” during the Off Broadway run, which was an immersive performance piece that covered two floors of a building in Hell’s Kitchen.Vincent Tullo for The New York TimesNow, she’ll be starring in “KPOP.” The producers say that the Broadway version of the show will tell the story of one singer’s internal struggle, which in turn threatens to dismantle one of the biggest labels in the industry. At the same time, a host of international superstars are risking it all for a one-night-only concert.“For those of you who already know and love K-pop music, this show is going to remind you why you fell in love with it in the first place,” Luna said. “For those of you yet to discover K-pop, get ready. We are going to blow you away.”The lead producers of the Broadway production of “KPOP” are Tim Forbes and Joey Parnes. The Off Broadway show, which had a sold-out run, was an Ars Nova production in collaboration with Ma-Yi Theater Company and Woodshed Collective.The Off Broadway production received mostly positive reviews. In his review for The New York Times, Ben Brantley, said: “The show is best when parody blurs into the already surreal dimensions of what’s being parodied.” More

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      Stray Kids, a K-Pop Octet, Debuts on the Chart at No. 1

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      The eight-member group sold more than 100,000 copies of its new mini-album, “Oddinary,” on CD, which came in an array of collectible versions.Stray Kids, a K-pop group formed through a reality-TV show, has made its first appearance on the Billboard 200 chart a big one, opening at No. 1.“Oddinary,” a seven-track EP with lyrics mostly in Korean, had the equivalent of 110,000 sales in the United States in its first week out. The vast majority of those sales were for CDs, as the eight-man group’s “Oddinary” came out in a variety of collectible versions including stickers, posters, trading cards and other goodies. The mini-album also had 10 million streams, according to Luminate, the tracking service formerly known as MRC Data (and, before that, Nielsen Music).Lil Durk’s “7220,” last week’s chart-topper, falls to No. 2 with the equivalent of 81,000 sales, mostly from streaming, a 33 percent drop. Disney’s “Encanto” soundtrack is No. 3, and Morgan Wallen’s “Dangerous: The Double Album” is No. 4.“Fighting Demons,” the second posthumous album by Juice WRLD, the singer and rapper who died at age 21 in late 2019, jumped 30 spots to No. 5 after it was rereleased in a deluxe version and also came out on physical formats like CD and vinyl LP. “Fighting Demons” had opened at No. 2 in December.The Weeknd’s compilation “The Highlights” is in sixth place, and the British pop singer and songwriter Charli XCX opens at No. 7 with “Crash,” a career high.On the singles chart, Glass Animals’ “Heat Waves,” a nearly two-year-old song that has become newly hot at pop radio after it became a meme on TikTok, holds at No. 1 for a fourth straight week. More

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      BTS Performs Live in Seoul for First Time in Over 2 Years

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      SEOUL — Elated fans of BTS gathered on Thursday for the K-pop group’s first live concert in South Korea in over two years, an event that was expected to draw as many as 15,000 people — despite Covid restrictions that barred cheering, screaming or singing.“It still feels like a dream,” said Park Hyunjun, 40, a freelance video producer from the city of Incheon, west of Seoul. Outside Seoul Olympic Stadium on Thursday, she held a poster bearing the concert’s slogan: “Of course, nothing has changed between us.”It was the first large-scale gathering of BTS fans in South Korea since the band’s last concert in their home country, in October 2019. The multibillion-dollar act performed live in Los Angeles in November, but for most of the pandemic it has been livestreaming instead.In 2020, the group set a Guinness world record for attracting the most viewers for a livestreamed music concert. The pandemic did not only pause the band’s live concerts: Five of BTS’s seven members have been infected with the coronavirus. They have since recovered from Covid-19.The concert Thursday, the largest approved by the South Korean government since the pandemic began, was taking place amid an Omicron wave that has driven caseloads in the country to unprecedented highs. On Thursday, the health authorities reported 327,549 new daily cases. But the government, which says the country must learn to live with the virus, has been loosening some restrictions.In and around the stadium on Thursday, 750 safety personnel were enforcing virus protocols, muting the festivities somewhat.“Please get moving once you’re done taking pictures,” fans taking group photos in front of the stadium’s entrance were told. “Please keep your distance to prevent the spread of Covid.”Fans’ temperatures were being taken before they entered the stadium. Rapid antigen kits were being made available for people with high temperatures, said the band’s agency, Hybe. And concertgoers had to enter through designated entrances, and during specific time slots, so they would not flow in all at once.Fans were also prohibited from cheering, screaming or singing along during the concert, and they had to keep their masks on, except to drink water. And attendance at the stadium, which can seat about 70,000 people, was being limited to 15,000.“I’m curious what kind of atmosphere there will be with everyone masked and no one screaming,” said Yu Haram, 17, who has followed the band for four years and was about to see them live for the first time.Throughout the pandemic, Ms. Yu said, she had followed the band online, sometimes gathering with her classmates to watch livestreams together. “I’m finally seeing them,” she said, “and I’m nervous.”The concert was the first of a three-day series, with more scheduled for Saturday and Sunday. It was being livestreamed for people who couldn’t attend in person.Yang Ji-woong, 15, said he had listened to the BTS song “Mikrokosmos” throughout the pandemic alone in his room and was looking forward to seeing it live.“I’m frankly a bit worried about Covid,” he said. “But I want to enjoy this moment as much as I can.” More

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      Sweden’s Songwriters Look to K-Pop

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      When the Swedish songwriter Ellen Berg first heard a K-pop track, in 2013, her reaction was typical of many Western listeners: “What the hell is this?” she recalled thinking.Berg, 31, was studying at Musikmakarna — a songwriting academy about 330 miles north of Stockholm — and her class had been asked to write a Korean hit.To get the aspiring songwriters in the mood, the students listened to “I Got a Boy” by Girls’ Generation, a wildly popular K-pop girl group. “It’s one of the craziest K-pop songs ever,” Berg said recently by phone. The track includes raps, bursts of high-speed dance music and even a verse in the style of a rock ballad. “It’s really five different songs in one,” Berg said.The class was given a week to write something like it. “It didn’t go very well,” Berg said, with a laugh.BTS performing during the American Music Awards in November in Los Angeles.Kevin Winter/Getty Images For MrcEight years later, Berg has certainly improved her K-pop songwriting abilities: She is now one of dozens of Swedish musicians who make a living exclusively from writing tracks for the genre. She has contributed to a hit for the pop juggernaut BTS, as well as to wildly successful tracks by groups like Red Velvet and Itzy.While Swedes have long been go-to figures for American pop stars — with songwriters like Max Martin and Shellback producing or co-writing tracks for Katy Perry, Taylor Swift, the Weeknd and others — Swedish musicians are now becoming a force in K-pop, too.Berg is signed to EKKO, a Korea-based music publisher with studios in Stockholm, where Berg works alongside Moa Carlebecker, a sought-after K-pop songwriter better known by her stage name, Cazzi Opeia. The two musicians (who collaborate under the name Sunshine) also regularly write with another duo — Ludvig Evers and Jonatan Gusmark, who call themselves Moonshine — based in a studio next door. Seven other Swedish songwriters who work on K-pop tracks have studios in the same building.Berg, Carlebecker, Evers and Gusmark first worked together in 2017 on “Peek-a-Boo,” a Red Velvet track that Berg likened to an old “Scooby-Doo” episode or a trip to a haunted house. “Peek-a-Boo” has since been streamed more than 217 million times on YouTube.EKKO is not the only company pumping out K-pop in Stockholm. Cosmos, a publisher, has seven songwriters working full time on K-pop tracks, Peo Nylen, its creative director, said in an email. The Kennel, another songwriting company, employs 14 K-pop writers, said Iggy Strange-Dahl, one of its founders.K-pop may seem like a recent phenomenon to Western music fans who caught on with the rise of BTS, but Korean record labels have been seeking out European songwriters since the late 1990s in a bid for global success, said Michael Fuhr, a German academic who wrote a book about K-pop. “They had Max Martin productions in mind,” he said, adding that the first successful European K-pop writers were actually Finnish and Norwegian, not Swedish.Today, songwriters of many nationalities are trying to make K-pop hits, Fuhr said, attracted, in part, by the fact that Koreans still buy CDs, so there is a lot of money to be made. SM Entertainment, a Korean entertainment conglomerate, says on its website that it works with 864 songwriters worldwide, including 451 across Europe and 210 in North America.Fuhr said that many K-pop hits were written at songwriting “camps” organized by record labels or publishers who invite musicians from across the world. Over multiple days, songwriters work in teams to create new songs. (American pop songs are also commonly written this way.)Gusmark, left, and Evers working in the studio. They perform together as Moonshine.Felix Odell for The New York TimesCarlebecker said in a video interview that she became hooked on K-pop when she first heard it, in 2016. As a child, she loved the Spice Girls, she said — “I had all the posters, I had all the CDs” — so K-pop instantly felt familiar, with its multitude of girl and boy groups in which each member has a uniquely defined personality.She immediately grasped that K-pop tracks must have multiple sections so each group member has a chance to shine, she said, whether they want to rap, sing softly or belt out a chorus. Having so many sections provides a lot more opportunities to be creative than on a typical Western pop song, she added.“There are no rules in K-pop — you can have three hooks, one after each other, if you feel like it,” Carlebecker said. “You can be crazy and colorful, and that’s what appealed the most.”Carlebecker, who is covered neck-to-toe in tattoos — a look that would be unlikely on an actual K-pop star — said she knew only two words of Korean: “annyeonghaseyo” (hello) and “gamsahabnida” (thank you).But that didn’t get in the way of her songwriting, she said: Carlebecker writes in English, and then Korean songwriters add new lyrics to her melodies, often keeping in a few random English words to help the track stand out.In interviews, Berg and Carlebecker offered multiple theories to explain why Swedes produce such good K-pop tracks, including the country’s strong songwriting tradition and comprehensive music education system. Sweden is cold, Berg noted, which meant that there was often “nothing better to do” than stay in and work on music.For some Koreans, the reason is actually quite simple: Swedes write melodies that are so catchy, fans want to sing them at packed stadium shows and at their local karaoke bars.“Swedes seem to have an emotional understanding of us Koreans,” Michelle Cho, a Korean songwriter who also scouts foreign songwriters for Korean record labels, said in a telephone interview. “They write melodies that seem to really hit our emotions.”Whatever the reason, as K-pop booms, competition among songwriters around the world is becoming fierce. Evers, of Moonshine, said that a few years ago, some songwriters in Sweden used to look down on his work as “a bit lame,” as though he’d failed to land gigs with American or European musicians and now had to ply his trade in Asia. Now, Evers said, those same people were coming up to him in bars saying, “We should write K-pop sometime!”Thanks to his success, he added, he was starting to get a tiny insight into the life of a K-pop idol. K-pop fans regularly contacted Moonshine on social media to praise the duo for its work, Evers said, and a popular K-pop YouTube channel has interviewed him.Swedish K-pop writers are getting noticed in Sweden, too. In November, Carlebecker was named “international success of the year” at Sweden’s annual songwriting awards, beating Max Martin (and Moonshine). Articles about the songwriters have appeared in the country’s major newspapers, and Berg and Carlebecker have been interviewed for TV news.Still, Evers said, not everyone has grasped just how significant K-pop is becoming for Sweden’s music industry.“My grandma still doesn’t understand what I do for a living,” Evers said. “She doesn’t think it’s real.” More

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      Suga of BTS Tests Positive for Covid

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      SEOUL — Suga, a member of the global K-pop phenomenon BTS, has tested positive for the coronavirus, the group’s management company said on Friday.The company, Big Hit Music, said in a statement that Suga, 28, who returned to South Korea from the United States on Thursday, discovered on Friday that he was infected while in quarantine and after taking a P.C.R. test.He had tested negative before traveling to the United States, the statement said, and had received his second vaccine dose in August.Suga had no contact with the other members of BTS — RM, Jin, J-Hope, Jimin, V and Jungkook — the statement said. He was not displaying any symptoms as of Friday, and he was isolating at home, the company said.The news comes a month after another K-pop megastar, Lalisa Manoban, 24, of Blackpink, better known as Lisa, also tested positive for the coronavirus. The other members of Blackpink — Jennie, Jisoo and Rosé — tested negative for the virus, the production company, YG Entertainment, said in an emailed statement last month.Suga, the stage name for the artist Min Yoon-gi, made his debut with BTS in 2013. The Korean pop group, a multibillion-dollar act, is known for dynamic dance moves, catchy lyrics and fiercely devoted fans.In 2018, BTS became the first K-pop group to top the Billboard album chart, with “Love Yourself: Tear.” In September this year, the group gave a speech at the U.N. headquarters in New York, promoting coronavirus vaccinations and praising young people for their resiliency during the pandemic.Suga has stepped out for solo projects, sometimes performing as Agust D, and as a commercial producer. In an interview with GQ Australia that was published this week, he said: “All three are me. They each take up a third of myself, and one isn’t more reflective of me than another. I simply give people a choice. These three sides of myself are incredibly different, so I’m giving people a choice to see me as they want.”This week, Billboard’s Charts reported that Suga and Juice WRLD, the stage name for the artist Jarad A. Higgins, had the best-selling song in the United States with “Girl of My Dreams,” the first time a song by either artist to hit No. 1 on any chart, according to Yahoo News. Juice WRLD died in December 2019, and the song is part of the artist’s posthumous album, “Fighting Demons.”John Yoon More

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      North Korea Executes People for Watching K-Pop, Rights Group Says

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      At least seven people have been put to death in the past decade for watching or distributing K-pop videos, as the North cracks down on what its leader calls a “vicious cancer.”SEOUL — North Korea has publicly executed at least seven people in the past decade for watching or distributing K-pop videos from South Korea, as it cracks down on what its leader, Kim Jong-un, calls a “vicious cancer,” according to a human rights report released on Wednesday.​The group, ​ Transitional Justice Working Group, which is based in Seoul, interviewed 683 North Korean defectors since 2015 to help map places in the North where people were ​killed and buried​ in state-sanctioned public executions​. In its latest report, the group said it had documented 23 such executions under Mr. Kim’s government.Since taking power a decade ago, Mr. Kim has attacked South Korean entertainment — songs, movies and TV dramas — which, he says, corrupts North Koreans’ minds. Under a law adopted last December, those who distribute South Korean entertainment can face the death penalty. One tactic of Mr. Kim’s clampdown has been to create an atmosphere of terror by publicly executing people found guilty of watching or circulating the banned content.It remains impossible to find out the true scale of public executions in the isolated totalitarian state. But Transitional Justice Working Group focused on executions that have taken place since Mr. Kim ascended and on those that have occurred in Hyesan, a North Korean city and a major trading hub on the border with China.The North Korean town of Hyesan, near the border with China, is a gateway to smuggle in South Korean entertainment stored on USB sticks.Damir Sagolj/ReutersThousands of North Korean defectors to South Korea have lived in or have passed through Hyesan. The city of 200,000 people is the main gateway for outside information, including South Korean entertainment stored on computer memory sticks and bootlegged across the border from China. As such, Hyesan has become a focus in Mr. Kim’s efforts to stop the infiltration of K-pop.Of the seven executions for watching or distributing South Korean videos, all but one took place in Hyesan, the report says. The six in Hyesan occurred between 2012 and 2014. Citizens were mobilized to watch the grisly scenes, where officials called the condemned social evil before they each were put to death by a total of nine shots fired by three soldiers.“The families of those being executed were often forced to watch the execution,” the report said.Mr. Kim rules North Korea with the help of a personality cult and a state propaganda machine that controls nearly every aspect of life in the North. All radios and television sets are set to receive government broadcasts only. People are blocked from using the global internet. But some North Koreans still manage to secretly watch South Korea’s movies and TV dramas. As the North’s economy has floundered amid the pandemic and international sanctions, defections to the South have continued.North Korean defectors filling bottles with rice and USB sticks to toss into the sea toward their former homeland.Ed Jones/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThe number of defectors arriving in South Korea has dropped sharply in recent years, however, so gathering fresh information on the North has become harder. Mr. Kim’s government has also further tightened border restrictions amid the pandemic.But Daily NK, a Seoul-based website that gathers news from clandestine sources in the North, reported that a villager and an army officer were publicly executed this year in towns deeper inland for distributing or possessing South Korean entertainment.And a few secretly filmed video clippings of public trials and executions have been smuggled out of North Korea. In footage shown on the South Korean TV station Channel A last year, a North Korean student was brought before a huge throng of people, including fellow students, and was condemned for possessing a USB stick that held “a movie and 75 songs from South Korea.”Shin Eun-ha told Channel A of a public execution she and her classmates had been made to watch from the front row when she was in second grade in North Korea. “The prisoner could hardly walk and had to be dragged out,” she said, adding, “I was so terrified that I could not dare look at a soldier in uniform for six months afterward.”Though Mr. Kim has described South Korean entertainment as a “vicious cancer,” North Koreans were able to watch the popular girl band Red Velvet and other South Korean stars who flew to Pyongyang in 2018 for two performances.Korea Pool via APMr. Kim has at times tried to appear more flexible toward outside culture​, allowing state television ​to play the theme song from “Rocky” and to show ​Mickey and Minnie Mouse characters ​onstage. He even invited South Korean K-pop stars to the capital, Pyongyang, in 2018, when he was engaged in summit diplomacy with President Moon Jae-in of South Korea. But at home, he has also escalated his crackdown on K-pop, especially after his talks with President Donald J. Trump collapsed in 2019 and the North’s economy has deteriorated in recent years.Amid growing international scrutiny of North Korea’s human rights abuses, the government appears to have taken steps to prevent information about its public executions from being leaked to the outside world.It no longer appears to execute prisoners at market places, moving the sites farther away from the border with China or town centers, and inspecting spectators more closely to prevent them from filming the executions, Transitional Justice Working Group said.Mr. Kim has also tried to create a public image as a benevolent leader by occasionally pardoning people condemned to death, especially when the size of an assembled crowd at a public trial is large, the group said.But K-pop seems to be an enemy that Mr. Kim cannot ignore.North Korea repeatedly lashes out against what it describes as an invasion of “anti-socialist and nonsocialist” influences from the South. It cracks down on South Korean slang spreading among its youths, including “oppa,” which became internationally known through Psy’s “Gangnam Style” song and video.The North’s state media has also warned that if left unchecked, K-pop’s influence would make North Korea “crumble like a damp wall.” More