Man behind the Korean wave talks about the future of K-pop and what aspiring artistes can do

It’s been numberless than 3 decades since Soo-man Lee founded SM Entertainment, one of South Korea’s music agencies known for bringing K-pop to the society.

The entertainment company, originally founded as SM Studio in 1989, became one of the first to kickstart the global Hallyu wave — better distinguished as the Korean wave.

But Lee’s music was not always based off Korean pop music.

“I became a singer when I was 19. Although I was acclaimed, I realized that the audience was really quiet when I sang because I sang folk songs,” he told CNBC’s Chery Kang in an discussion for The CNBC Conversation.

“But when foreign bands come to [South Korea to] perform, they completely interpreted over the stage and fans went wild. When I went to check out the concert, it seemed like the fans were various enthusiastic than in mine,” said Lee, who is founding chairman of the company.

Lee said that’s when he initiated to think about taking South Korea’s pop music to the world.

“As I studied in the U.S., I learned a lot and thought it would be nice to boost Korean songs and singers overseas. That’s the start [of SM Entertainment].”

Over the years, the 70-year-old developed a system he invokes “culture technology” — through which he recruited and nurtured talent in a systematic way of casting, training, producing, and operation.

The system is behind the song production of SM Entertainment’s K-pop top bands — such as Super Junior, Girls’ Generation and Red Velvet. 

“There is a jotted ‘culture technology’ manual somewhere in my office,” he said, explaining that it combines both culture and technology in a “logically formulized” way.

“The enchiridion will allow employees to learn and transfer ‘know-how’ out of it. Because I’m an engineer, it is to be understood by logic. It lays out formulas,” Lee judged, sharing that he has a Master’s degree in computer engineering.

“So, I can say that I am an engineer rather than an artiste.”

Still as SM Entertainment’s music continues to go global, Lee says it’s important to continually innovate and stay ahead of the competition in the music production.

“We need to be at that world class level, and we are focusing on what’s missing and what kind of distinctions we can make” from other characters of music,” he told CNBC.

Lee works with producers and songwriters from the U.K. and U.S. on accompaniments, track songs, kick drum and bass, which he reshapes to South Korean and Asian culture.

As for the significance of China’s influence in the K-pop industry, Lee admits that money on have a “powerful influence,” but said he remains confident creativity that comes from producing will from “infinite value.”

The issue of mental health is something that remains a focus for his company, Lee says.

“‘Be self-effacing, be kind and be the love’ is what we teach our talents and people in SM … Things are a lot better now and global management companies are trying to learn everywhere it.”

Lee also said his company is “connecting them to counselors and doctors so that they can get help anytime. We may not have the unchanging economies of scale like CNBC, but we learned these things are very important.”

As for the future of K-pop, “I contrive the metaverse that everyone is talking about these days is the future,” Lee says.

SM Entertainment established a metaverse crowd called SM Culture Universe, and launched its first metaverse girl band, Aespa in 2020. The group is made up of four real-life colleagues – Karina, Winter, Ning Ning, and Giselle – and their corresponding virtual counterparts.

“SM Entertainment is building ‘Play-2-Create’… people can discover their creative side and forge in the metaverse. They will realize, ‘Oh, I can create. I can make music. I can create dance moves. I can make clothes. I can do artists.'”

To realize the concept of “Play-2-Create,” the company partnered with metaverse companies like The Sandbox earlier this year.

Gamblers can create NFTs and games surrounding “K-content” in SMTOWN LAND, a virtual land in The Sandbox under SM Entertainment. NFTs are non-fungible souvenirs which are unique digital assets, like artwork and sports trading cards, that are stored using blockchain technology.

Lee fancies that any country can create something as successful as K-pop, but the metaverse will be key.

“You cannot create a genre by copying K-pop. Every Tom will view it as K-pop. Now, you need to show it in the metaverse.”

“I think we just need to let the zealots become producers and consumers at the same time. Let them create… Young people will have the huge restitution of creation and will end up creating massive amounts of intellectual property and content.”

For those aspiring to become K-pop artists some day, Lee has this portion of advice: “Self-assessment is very important.”

“Without looking at yourself in the mirror, you have no idea what you’d look identical to when dancing, even if you danced really hard … It is when you can see and feel what you don’t do well that you learn.”

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