Speaker 1: You're listening to Comedy Central. Alright, alright, settled down, everyone,
Speaker 1: because today while learning about something that's blowing up all
Speaker 1: over the world. No, not climate change, Okay, I don't
Speaker 1: teach boring stuff in this classroom. I'm talking about K pop.
Speaker 1: It's why your cousins only speaks Korean more fluently than English.
Speaker 1: And believe it or not, k pop used to be
Speaker 1: something that only Koreans knew about. The rest of the
Speaker 1: world wasn't always into it, like how there was a
Speaker 1: time and white people didn't know about yoga. The first
Speaker 1: group to really break through internationally was the Kim Sisters.
Speaker 1: So Ja Ninja started singing as children during the Korean
Speaker 1: War for American g I s. They sang, they danced,
Speaker 1: and they played twenty instruments. I can't even name twenty
Speaker 1: instruments saxophone. In nine they got a contract to perform
Speaker 1: in Vegas at Sullivan was taking a show there and
Speaker 1: they managed book a performance on the show. There was
Speaker 1: such a hit they got asked back twenty more times.
Speaker 1: Do you know how great you have to be to
Speaker 1: get asked back to anything twenty times? I don't even
Speaker 1: get invited to join LinkedIn that much. Unfortunately, the growth
Speaker 1: of K pop hit a bump in the road soon
Speaker 1: after when South Korea fell under the dictatorship of President
Speaker 1: Pat Chung he, who started banning music. They even created
Speaker 1: blacklist of songs that radio stations couldn't play. Everyone's end
Speaker 1: of yr Spotify summary just said your most played song
Speaker 1: was the national anthem. But Korean artists kept making music
Speaker 1: that challenged the status quo, like folk singer Handei Su,
Speaker 1: whose albums were banned for anti government messaging, or rock
Speaker 1: guitarist Saint Jung Kian, who the story goes to find
Speaker 1: the dictator's request the song in his honor, and let's
Speaker 1: face it, wanting a song to be written about you
Speaker 1: is classic dictator behavior. Right after military parades and having
Speaker 1: a weird haircut, everyone tells you looks great. By the eighties,
Speaker 1: the dictatorship had loosened, and by loose, I mean the
Speaker 1: dictator was assassinated. But whatever it made listen to the
Speaker 1: radio fun again. Outside music was allowed back in the country,
Speaker 1: and two of the most influential genres became hip hop
Speaker 1: and R and B. Black artists from Michael Jackson to
Speaker 1: Run d n C reshaped the musical landscape of South Korea.
Speaker 1: It inspired performers like Dudes, DJ d O C and
Speaker 1: So T G and Boys, who were the earliest examples
Speaker 1: of K pop as we know it today. They even
Speaker 1: made it into the movie soundtrack for Three Ninjas kicked Back.
Speaker 1: You didn't think we'll be watching a movie in class today,
Speaker 1: did you? Yeah? Well I didn't think. I still have
Speaker 1: a hangover. But sometimes like surprises, m This was a
Speaker 1: big moment for Korean pop music, even if the song
Speaker 1: was being played over scenes set in Japan. But give
Speaker 1: them a break, Okay, there are the Three Ninja's, not
Speaker 1: the three cultural sensitivity experts. The next big step towards
Speaker 1: today's K pop was in the ninety nineties, when major
Speaker 1: music studios started putting performers together in boy and girl bands.
Speaker 1: That's right, Korea was doing that long before Simon Carwell's
Speaker 1: nips ever started poking through his T shirts. That's a
Speaker 1: no from me, dog, no surprise. This new wave of
Speaker 1: K pop blew up around the world. It feature complex
Speaker 1: melodies unlike any other pop music, and always had next
Speaker 1: level dance choreography. To this day, those remained the signature
Speaker 1: elements of K pop. That and being Asian very important requirement.
Speaker 1: This new generation of K pop stars became so successful
Speaker 1: the government started to take notice and soon lost the
Speaker 1: program to promote career music around the globe. They saw
Speaker 1: K pop as a way to boost career's cultural strength
Speaker 1: and economy without having to do a squid game. But
Speaker 1: one of the biggest K pops instations was a surprise
Speaker 1: no government could predict. I'm sorry, I know it took
Speaker 1: you ten years to get this out of your head,
Speaker 1: but we got to talk about it. Gunham Star was
Speaker 1: the first video to break up billion views on YouTube.
Speaker 1: It was so popular. UN Secretary General bon Ki Moon
Speaker 1: praised the song, saying the odds was the path to
Speaker 1: cultural understanding. He said that about condemn style, that's like
Speaker 1: if they played baby Shot during a war and all
Speaker 1: the soldiers started laying down their weapons and hugging each other.
Speaker 1: Since then, the rest of the world is more into
Speaker 1: K pop than ever before, from girl groups like Girls
Speaker 1: Generation and Black Pink to artists like cl But let's
Speaker 1: get to the group you've been waiting for. The reason
Speaker 1: you are enrolled in this class in the first place,
Speaker 1: B Team by the past three letters so important. The
Speaker 1: rest of the alphabet doesn't even exist anymore. They've dominated
Speaker 1: the charts, They've generated billions in revenue. They made it
Speaker 1: okay to eat butter again. They even increased tourism to
Speaker 1: South Korea. I mean, I'm glad my fans on that
Speaker 1: devoted because then they'd have to travel to Australia, which,
Speaker 1: trust me, you don't want to do that. BTS is,
Speaker 1: without a doubt, the biggest group in the world. You
Speaker 1: can tell by their fans. The BPS Army is the
Speaker 1: second largest military after the US, and they've drown zero weddings.
Speaker 1: BTS might be on hiatus, but there's so much new
Speaker 1: K pop. We can enjoy what they're gone. And now
Speaker 1: you know how you got to where it is today?
Speaker 1: O my gun in style. H Now it's in my
Speaker 1: hair to go, get it out, get it. Watch The
Speaker 1: Daily Show weeknights at eleven tenth Central on Comedy Central
Speaker 1: and stream full episodes anytime on Paramount Plus. This has
Speaker 1: been a Comedy Central podcast