A K-pop band that wants to change the industry from the inside

Hong Eunchae, the youngest member of the K-Pop band Le Sserafim, is wandering around Seoul’s infamous Nakwon Instrument Arcade when she suddenly loses her footing.

With a crash, his drink flew into the air and the 17-year-old fell down the metal stairs, landing with a painful thud on the basement floor.

There is a moment. Then he kept shrugging his shoulders, harmlessly, as if this was how he usually wandered up the stairs.

Instantly meme-able, the scene is available on trailer for Le Sserafim’s third EP, Easyreleased earlier this year. But Eunchae says it also has a deeper meaning.

“If I follow the path I want to follow, falling and falling doesn’t matter,” he told the BBC.

“I always start over as if nothing happened. That’s the message I wanted to deliver.”

Such irreverence and persistence have helped Le Sserafim to create a niche since they were thrown into the spotlight two years ago.

With the unmistakable power of Girls Aloud and the beautiful hooks of Korean pop machine, they released soulful, club-friendly songs like You are crazy again Antifragilenominated for multiple MTV Awards, and collaborated with Nile Rodgers and PinkPantheress.

To the casual observer, the quintet might seem like a prototypical girl band: Organized, choreographed and full of confidence.

But they speak frankly about the unrealistic standards the industry places on women.

Opened Eve, Psyche and Bluebeard’s Wife (a song composed by three women who defy society’s expectations), rapper and singer Kim Chaewon talks about the pressure to perform, even when you’re not at your best.

“Smile too much for the crowd / Shut up, shut up, now shut your feelings out.”

Opened Good BonesHuh Yunjin questioned his critics.

“You think it’s okay to discredit someone/ Just because they’re being honest with them?” he protested against the exploding rock.

“As a group, we always try to show that both strength and vulnerability,” explained Yunjin.

“But no matter what happens, we’ve got each other and that gives us strength.”

Le Sserafim has an unusual history, with members drawn from all over the world at different ages and stages of readiness for the label Source Music.

Sakura Miyawaki is a business veteran, with experience in three other bands – KT48, AKB48 and Iz*One.

At 26 years old, he is the oldest Sserafim, and Yunjin calls him a “pillar” of strength who “always has good advice” about the industry.

Chaewon is also a part of Iz*One, and serves as the leader of Le Sserafim, a role he describes as “the rock” that makes everything run smoothly when problems arise.

Yunjin grew up in New York and studied opera before entering the tough world of K-pop training. In contrast, Eunchae only had 15 months to prepare before her official debut in 2022. He is 17 years old, nicknamed Manchae – a portmanteau of his name again. himself (막내), a Korean word meaning “the smallest member”.

The last to join was former ballerina Nakamura Kazuha, who was expelled from the Dutch National Ballet Academy five months before Le Sserafim’s debut. To this day, he feels he is playing the same football as the rest of the team.

“It’s been two years but every day is still a new challenge,” he said.

In the beginning there was a sixth member. Kim Garam was featured on the band’s first EP, Fearless, but quickly resigned after allegations of harassment from high school students.

It’s not the only bump in the road Le Sserafim has faced.

Earlier this year, the band apologized for the appearance of vocal weakness during a performance at Coachella in California. In response to the negative press, Chaewon said that the group was simply “happy and lost control of our speed” while playing their first foreign festival.

The latest behind-the-scenes documentary, Make It Look Easyrevealed more about the pressure the group faced promoting their debut album, Unforgiven, last year.

In one scene, Chaewon breaks down in tears and confesses: “I really don’t know how to be happy.”

“To be honest, sometimes I think about quitting,” he tells an off-camera interviewer.

Kazuha also faces a lack of confidence in her abilities as a player.

“Sometimes I have a lot of confidence and I’m like, ‘I have to work hard. I can do this’,” he said. “But then I lose my confidence and I’m like, ‘I can’t do anything. I don’t have charm’.”

Yunjin is furious. His upbringing in America gives him a different perspective on the K-Pop “image” industry, and he has expressed a desire to change it from within.

“Idols need to do this, do that. There are all these unspoken rules,” he said in the documentary.

“I could hear it when I was still training, but at that time I wanted more [make my] It’s a debut, so I just agreed. But after the first talk I was like, ‘Why does it have to be like this?’

He pours out that frustration in a solo song called I-Doll, which openly criticizes the way pop stars are treated like products.

“They carved my body and threw away the rest“You sing.”Idol doesn’t mean your doll [expletive] with.”

In the past, the 23-year-old announced that he wanted to “change the photography industry”, breaking “strict standards one by one”.

By being open about their struggles, Le Sserafim is deliberately challenging the status quo – and their honesty comes at a time when K-pop artists are more willing to confront the system.

Earlier this week, the singer with girl group NewJeans testified in the National Assembly of South Korea about the harassment he faced at work. Last year, 11 members of Omega X were released from their contracts following allegations of “unfair treatment” by their label.

Le Sserafim – who have the full support of Source Music – put a good image on their story.

“The message we wanted to convey through the documentary was not that our work is hard and tiring,” said Chaewon.

“Rather, we wanted to emphasize the fact that we have a lot in common with anyone who has held the job down.”

“We want to say that you don’t have to be perfect all the time,” Yunjin added.

“Everyone is going through hardships,” Chaewon concluded. “So our message is, let’s overcome all those difficulties together.”

In a superficial industry, they make beauty out of their imperfections, portraying them as strengths.

Even the band’s name is an anagram of the phrase “I’m not afraid”.

Their harmony is expressed in songs like these Lightning chase – when Yunjin is teased about her obsession with Greek yogurt, and Sakura explains her love of crocheting – and their latest single, 1-800 Hot N Fun.

Powered by a bass guitar, it follows the band into the night, kisses strangers, wants the DJ to play Beyoncé, and sticks on the dance floor until dawn.

“I like that song,” Yunjin said. “It’s almost like a conversation, we’re all talking.”

On the hook, teammates kept asking, “Where is Saki?” – their nickname for Sakura – before someone answered, “He is waiting downstairs in the lobby.”

Does that mean Sakura is always the first to get ready?

“Hey! Hey!Yunjin exclaimed. “That’s actually true! This is the first time we’ve thought about it that way. That’s genius.”

There won’t be much party time this year, though. Le Sserafim has been speaking to the BBC during a long day of TV rehearsals, and fans have speculated that they are working on a new EP – completing the release of a trilogy called Easy, Crazy and Hot.

The topic was hinted at in the lyrics of Good Bones, but Yunjin cleverly avoids revealing any secrets.

“Will it even be called Hot? We don’t know?” he laughs.

“It may be cold, it may be warm. But whatever we come out with, it will be fire.”

Based on the evidence so far, there’s no reason to doubt it… as long as Eunchae avoids the stairs.