SM Entertainment founder Lee Soo-man on K-pop future, running business

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

The entertainment company, originally founded as SM Studio in 1989, became one of the first to kickstart the global Hallyu wave — better known 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 famous, I realized that the audience was really quiet when I sang because I sang folk songs,” he told CNBC’s Chery Kang in an interview for The CNBC Conversation.

SM Entertainment’s Soo-man Lee (fourth from the right) posing with K-pop supergroup SuperM.

Gabriel Olsen | Getty Images Entertainment | Getty Images

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

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Future of K-pop

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

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

SM Entertainment established a metaverse world called SM Culture Universe, and launched its first metaverse girl band, Aespa in 2020.

Alexi Rosenfeld | Getty Images Entertainment | Getty Images

“SM Entertainment is building ‘Play-2-Create’… people can discover their creative side and create 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 style artists.'”

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

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

Lee believes 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. Everyone will view it as K-pop. Now, you need to show it in the metaverse.”

Without looking at yourself in the mirror, you have no idea what you’d look like when dancing, even if you danced really hard…

Soo-man Lee

Founder, SM Entertainment

“I think we just need to let the fans become producers and consumers at the same time. Let them create… Young people will have the huge satisfaction 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 piece of advice: “Self-assessment is very important.”

“Without looking at yourself in the mirror, you have no idea what you’d look like 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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Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2022/12/05/sm-entertainment-founder-lee-soo-man-on-k-pop-future-running-business.html