Keynotes on how a market that said no becomes a market that cannot get enough. From the US partner for BTS, the manager of Monsta X and Wonho, and a two-time Billboard International Power Player.
The 2016 to 2018 playbook. A Korean group with no US label, no radio and an industry that laughed. What was done, in what order, and why it worked: the radio guerrilla campaign, the 2017 American Music Awards, Ellen, Kimmel and Corden, the Platinum "Mic Drop" remix. The decisions any company entering a market that does not want it yet can copy.
What K-pop knows about fandom that every consumer business is still learning. Community before product, participation before purchase, and the economics of the super-fan: albums bought in sets, lightsticks, memberships, fan events. How fandom turns into revenue, and where brands get it wrong.
Taking an act, a product or a brand from a home market into the United States. The order of operations that saves a year, the partners that matter, the money that moves numbers and the money that never pays back. Told through Monsta X: the first K-pop act on US Top 40 pop radio, a No. 5 Billboard 200 album sung in English, iHeartRadio Jingle Ball, Epic Records.
US partner for BTS and Big Hit Entertainment (now HYBE), 2016 to 2018. The 2017 American Music Awards, the US late-night run, the Platinum "Mic Drop" remix (No. 28, Billboard Hot 100).
Monsta X on the Billboard 200 with an album sung in English. First K-pop act on iHeartRadio Jingle Ball, first at the iHeartRadio Music Festival, signed to Epic Records.
Billboard International Power Player, 2021 and 2022. Front page of the Los Angeles Times Arts and Books, 2019.
EG Management, Intertwine Records and LUSIVEX. Former partner at Maverick Management. Author of the forthcoming book A Thousand No’s.
Full record with sources on the K-pop US breakthrough timeline.
"Early on, many people in the industry mocked my attempts to break BTS. They thought it was never going to happen in the U.S."Eshy Gazit in Billboard, December 2017
Bureaus and agencies: write to eg@eshygazit.com.