TOP OF THE POPS
HOW K-POP BECAME A VIRAL SENSATION IN INDIA
2000: Under pressure from militant groups seeking to enforce a boycott of Hindi film and TV shows in Manipur, cable operators there look to Korean television channels like Arirang and KBS World
2012: Psy’s ‘Gangnam Style’ puts K-pop on the global map. The same year, the Korean Culture Centre in New Delhi holds their first annual K-pop contest, with 37 contestants and 300 attendees
September 2017: Music channel VH1 launches KPopp’d, India’s first TV segment dedicated to K-pop music, partly in response to the number of K-pop song requests they were getting on Twitter
July 2017: Rolling Stone India features an interview with BTS rapper Kim Nam-joon on its cover. The website’s servers crash due to high traffic within minutes, and #IndiaLovesBTS trends No. 2 worldwide
September 2016: Guwahati’s Priyanka Mazumdar wins the Excellent Vocal Award (3rd position) at the World K-pop Festival in Changwon, South Korea. Mizoram dance group Immortals Army follows this up with a Best Dance Performance win the next year
2019: Siddhanth Arora and Priyanka Mazumdar are signed on by Singaporebased company COZMIC Group’s label Z-pop Dream. The duo join Z-boys and Z-girls respectively, two idol groups with members from around the world. (Though modelled on the K-Pop system, they are not K-Pop groups)
May 2020: A nationwide talent hunt for “India’s first all-girl K-Pop band” ends the formation of girl group ‘High 5’ and the release of their debut music video, a cover of the track ‘PIRI’ by Korean group Dreamcatcher. It is not received well by K-pop fans
May 2021: Armaan Malik collaborates with KoreanAmerican K-pop star Eric Nam and American producer KSHMR on ‘Echo’, in celebration of Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage Month
May 2022: Sriya (her stage name), Gabi announced as new members of Blackswan, making Sriya the first Indian K-pop idol