Seoul:
Growing up in Noord -Korea, the youth of Hyuk were about survival. He has never listened to forbidden K-pop music, but after the defect to the south he is about to make his debut as an idol.
Hyuk is one of the two young North Koreans in a new K-pop band called 1-fresh-the first time that artists originally from the nuclear arming north were trained for star row in the worldwide K-pop industry of South Korea.
Before he was 10, Hyuk-Die, like many K-pop idols, now undergone one name-the school to work on the street in his native North Hamgyong province and admits that he “had to steal quite a bit to survive”.
“I had never really listened to K-pop music,” he told AFP and said that “watching music videos felt like a luxury for me”.
“My life was all about survival,” he said, adding that he did everything, from farm work to transporting cement to make money to buy food for his family.
But when he was 13, his mother, who had escaped North Korea and had come to the south, encouraged him to join her.
He realized that this could be his chance to escape the hunger and hardships, but said he knew nothing about the other half of the Korean peninsula.
“For me, the world was just North Korea – nothing further,” he said AFP.
His bandmate, Seok, also grew up in the north – but unlike Hyuk's Hardscrabble education, he was raised in a relatively rich family who lived close to the border.
As a result, although K-pop and other South Korean content such as K-Dramaaas in the North are forbidden with hard penalties for offenders, Seok said “It was possible to buy and sell numbers illegally via smuggers”.
Thanks to his older sister, Seok listened to K-pop and even watched from a young age with rare videos of South Korean artists, he said AFP.
“I remember that I wanted to imitate those cool expressions and styles – things like hairstyles and outfits,” Seok told AFP.
Eventually, when he was 19, Seok was overflowing in the south. Six years later he is a spitting image of a K-pop idol.
Star quality
Hyuk and Seok were recruited for 1-fresh, a new boys' band and the first signed with smaller Seoul-based Singing Beetle by the CEO of the company, Michelle Cho.
Cho was introduced to both young defectors through friends.
Hyuk worked in a factory when she met him, but when she heard raps he had written, she told AFP that she “knew he was a natural talent”.
Initially “he claimed a complete lack of confidence in his ability to rap,” said Cho, but she offered him free lessons and then invited him to the studio, making him addicted.
Eventually, “he decided to give music a chance,” she said, and became the first trainee of the desk.
Seok, on the other hand, had self -confidence and trust from the very beginning, “she said, and lobbyed hard to take on.
When Seok heard that he would train alongside another North Korean defector, he said it “gave me the courage to believe that I might be able to do it”.
“We are almost there”
The other members of 1verse are a Chinese-American, a Lao-Thai American and a Japanese dancer. The five men in the twenties hardly speak each other's languages.
But Hyuk, who studied English, said it doesn't matter.
“We also learn about each other's cultures, try to bridge the holes and get closer,” he said.
“Surprisingly we communicate very well. Our languages are not perfectly fluent, but we still understand each other. Sometimes that feels almost incredible.”
Aito, the Japanese trainee who is the most important dancer in the group, said he was “fascinated” to meet his North Korean bandmates.
“In Japan, when I looked the news, I often saw many international issues about defectors, so the general image is not very positive,” he said.
But Aito told AFP his worries “all disappeared” when he met Hyuk and Seok. And now the five artists are about to their debut.
It has been a long way from North Korea to the CUSP of K-POP-Sterrendom in the south for Hyuk and Seok-But they say they are determined to make 1-fresh success.
“I really want to move someone with my voice. That feeling gets stronger every day,” Seok said.
Hyuk said that being part of a real band was a moving experience for him.
“It really affected me, like wow, we are almost there.”
(This story was not edited by Our staff and is automatically generated from a syndicated feed.)
