K-Pop Crossover: New York's Very Own K-Pop Boy Band EXP Successfully Funds Kickstarter Campaign

EXP, the New York-based self-proclaimed K-pop boy band may not be your typical K-pop act, but their Kickstarter has taken their project to the next level.

Created by Bora Kim, Karin Kuroda and Samantha Shao, the six-member boy band successfully funded their $30,000 Kickstarter campaign for their first mini album last month.

"Many people assume we are a huge company who spent an immense amount of money to produce this project, but in reality we've made amazing strides with extremely limited financial resources," read their Kickstarter page.

"We've been working diligently since October 2014 to produce a project that music corporations would typically launch."

According to The Fader, EXP has experienced backlash from some K-pop fans accusing the band of copying EXO, one of Korea's most popular boy bands.

"The Korean pop industry has always appropriated its concepts from the West, and also the West through Japan, until not, and the reverse was a shock for the Korean public," said Kim, a Columbia University student who conceived the project for her thesis.

"'Idol groups' became national heroes and K-pop became part of a proud national identity. But there is a double standard at play here. K-pop had been looked down upon until outsiders started to consume it and its related products as well. I wanted to see what would happen if I made American boys into K-pop performers, by teaching them how to sing in Korean and act like Korean boys and complicate this flow/appropriation even more."

According to their Instagram account, EXP is currently busy writing music for their upcoming mini album. With the creative filming their behind-the-scenes process, it is expected EXP will follow the trend of other K-pop groups and release additional footage online for fans to enjoy.

Check out a preview of EXP in their Kickstarter video below:

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