JYP Meets The Worst Contestant During An Audition For “A2K” — But He Is Left Impressed
JYP Entertainment recently released the fifth episode of its new global girl group audition program called A2K, and a contestant left a huge impression despite not being the best dancer.
A2K is an acronym for “America to Korea,” and the show is produced by both JYP Entertainment and Republic Records. With the plan to debut a girl group at the end of 2023, JYPE founder Park Jin Young, also known as J.Y. Park or JYP, described that they are looking for “American talent to create a girl group through a K-Pop system.”
After auditions in Dallas, New York, Chicago, Atlanta, and Los Angeles, selected members attended a boot camp held in Los Angeles, which will be held for a week. During the boot camp, each contestant received an A2K pendant with four empty slots. The four slots represent four criteria: dancing, vocals, star quality, and character.
For day 1, contestants prepared dances from one of JYP Entertainment’s songs, and the ones that impressed J.Y. Park received a “dance stone.”
A contestant from the Los Angeles audition named KG caught J.Y. Park’s attention at the first audition because of her mature and unique voice.
However, her dancing was not impressive, and J.Y. Park told her she would most likely be at the “lowest level” of dancers among the other selected contestants.
After hearing this criticism, KG said she started practicing dance immediately after the first audition and put a lot of effort into her dancing.
When she finally performed her dance for the song “Fever” by J.Y. Park at the boot camp audition, she showed a new and improved version of herself.
After her performance, J.Y. Park was brutally honest in the beginning.
That was the worst among all contestants today…
— J.Y. Park
Although she was the worst dancer among the contestants that day, J.Y. Park guaranteed she was the most impressive. He then praised her dedication and improvement since the last audition.
… But the most impressive because I know where you were at the regional audition. That’s effort. That’s dedication. That’s the drive that I wanted to see. If you could come here from there, it means you can go all the way there. That’s what’s important to me. That’s what’s important to the K-Pop fans. Your attitude.
— J.Y. Park
The final candidates selected during the week-long boot camp will fly to Korea to train at the JYP training center. From there, the trainees will go through the final debuting procedure and debut as a girl group.
Watch her full audition in episode 5 of A2K.
