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