Stray Kids’ Bang Chan Tore Down The Notion That K-Pop Is “Manufactured” In New Interview

In a recent interview with Clash Music, Stray Kids’ Bang Chan and his fellow members gave a great response to foil the age-old criticism that K-Pop is inherently “manufactured”.

Stray Kids is a somewhat unusual K-Pop boy group in that their whole journey has been organic. Rather than their company, JYP Entertainment, selecting the lineup, Bang Chan actually hand-picked the members himself.

On top of that, the group’s music doesn’t come direct from JYP Entertainment higher-ups either. Almost all Stray Kids songs are produced by 3RACHA, the group’s subunit made up of Bang Chan, Changbin, and Han. 3RACHA has been actively composing and releasing music since before Stray Kids debuted and continues to manage the group’s musical direction.

In the interview, Bang Chan gave his thoughts on people’s reservations towards K-Pop—namely the notion that everything about K-Pop is inherently manufactured with no sense of authenticity. It’s a criticism that many fans know well.

Of course, it’s K-pop music, but it’s still music in general

— Bang Chan

Bang Chan astutely pointed out that he understands why people might call the genre manufactured. He noted that there are many structured components that make up the K-Pop process, from marketing to music videos.

There are a lot of things that go into it… so it might seem manufactured.

— Bang Chan

Despite that, Bang Chan summed up the reality of this process well: there may be lots of methodologies at play, but all the people working on K-Pop albums put their hearts into the music just like in other countries.

In the end, it’s a really big team project. Maybe the process could be manufactured, but the end-result has got a lot of people’s spirits and energy in it.

— Bang Chan

Bang Chan also talked about how freedom is a huge part of what makes Stray Kids authentic. Freedom allows the group to be creative and feel comfortable making what they want for their fans, STAYs.

You know how we make our own music and lyrics? Every [other] content we have has our opinions on it as well — that itself is just really big freedom.

— Bang Chan

Han’s statements in the interview supported Bang Chan’s too. He agreed that the story Stray Kids wants to tell and the message they want to deliver are all true to them.

The music that we like and the music that we want to do? There is no difference. That basically is Stray Kids’ music.

— Han