Sheikh Mehbuba Moitree
Bangladeshi young people especially students of schools, colleges and universities are being gradually attracted to listen to Korean pop songs as they describe depending on music to make them feel better.
According to the Bangladeshi young generation, their songs are entertaining them in many ways including telling stories.
Kpop, abbreviation of Korean pop, is a genre of popular music originating in South Korea. While the modern form of K-pop can be traced back to the early 90s, the term itself has been popularised since the 2000s.
Apart from the Bangladesh, the K-pop young fans from all over the world must have heard the name of the quickly rising boy group ‘Stray Kids’ who kicked off a new era in their musical career and that is already proving to be a major success on the music charts.
Stray Kids is a South Korean boy group under JYP Entertainment. The group currently consists of Bang Chan, Lee Know, Changbin, Hyunjin, Han, Felix, Seungmin, and I.N. Woojin who was the main vocalist left the group on October 27th, 2019.
Stray Kids was formed through the survival program with the same name, Stray Kids. Stray Kids debuted on March 25, 2018. The members are still so young and energetic and their ages are between 18 years to 22 years.
Their fandom name is STAY. The band name of the group has been given by the team members. The group name expresses their determination to break the existing mold and go one step forward to be out of the ordinary.
When we started looking for the meaning of their fandom name STAY, we found out, STAY represents how Stray Kids want the fandom to stay by their side.
They are already on talked topics on TV shows around different countries because of their huge fanbase. They are ready to be named the fastest new generation kpop group gaining popularity outside Korea.
It has been only 22 months and this group already released 8 albums. The audiences have not only been attracted to their music but also their strong stage performance and amazing expression skills.
Their latest album Clé: Levanter sold more than 83,000 copies in the first week. They broke their own record with the latest album. The second single of this album is Astronaut which was the first single they released without the former member Woojin, who left for personal reasons.
Stray Kids write their own music, fans can easily understand the messages their idols try to give through the music by their various songs about their own lives that they've produced. Eric Nam, a popular Korean-American TV host and singer praised Stray Kids and he said, "I think Stray kids have been doing it a proper way of trying to grow organically on different markets. Unfortunately they have a member leave, I don't know why, but I hope they'll keep doing their thing. They have really a big year ahead of them."
They have four English language speakers in their group, Bang Chan, Felix, Han & Seungmin. Bang Chan and Felix, whose cavernously deep voice is at odds with his calm innocent looks, were both raised in Australia.
Becoming a Kpop idol is not easy, it's all about training and hard work, not all trainee can make it to the debut stage, some end up as backup dancers for the rest of their career.
Changbin, one of the rappers of the Stray Kids faced difficulties too, he said, "When I was becoming a singer, some people didn’t support my dreams, so I was sad. I remember that and put those feelings into music.”
We have already got a feeling from him saying that, when it comes to reality, everything seems so close to heart. Same thing goes for Stray Kids boys, they're writing about their own true feelings that related to everyone.
Based on their promotional video of the latest album on YouTube their leader Bang Chan said about their fans,"No matter how cold the rain is, even if I get soaked in the rain, STAY is the one who holds out their hands to me."
He added, "Frankly, I was struggling a lot, I was so sorry, because I thought I wouldn't be able to keep the promise about always being 9 and disappoint you. But I am sure STAY will always be by our side.
3RACHA was a trio under JYP Entertainment who debuted before Stray Kids but now it's a sub-unit of Stray Kids. It contains members Bang Chan (CB97), Changbin (SPEARB), and Han (J. ONE). They debuted in 2017.
3RACHA is responsible for the majority of the group’s songs, which they make in collaboration with other songwriters and producers. "It might just be us three who are making music," said Bang Chan, "But around us the team members always give us good ideas or which way to go, so that always helps."
"Choosing the right people was a must. With everyone around me right now, I’m really glad we’ve become this team" Bang Chan said.
Bang Chan is specially known to his fans for his amazing leadership skills. He's an true inspiration to his group mates too. The former member Woojin once said in an interview, "Bang Chan was very good to us while we were filming the show. At that time we always followed him very well, and relied on him a lot." "I don’t have a lot of confidence but when he’s next to me, I know I can do this," said Felix.
Their youngest member called I.N always said, "I'm thankful to our leader Bang Chan. Because of him, I am here today with these brothers. If he wasn't there for me, I don't know what would happen to me. I don't even want to think about it."
We talked to some STAY, A 2nd year student Moumita at the University Of Dhaka said she got stunned them since pre-debut.
“They're like the whole package. They are a unified group, they're well rounded, kind, talented, multilingual and they're everything. They're so fresh and young. They always bring their things that have been on their minds with music which is absolutely great,” she added.
She added their lyrics are so relatable like we can actually feel it and they're sort of special.
“They're so nice and devoted to their fans. Their music speaks to the younger generations and they speak a lot about things that need to be spoken about. Honestly, they are like the best thing that has ever happened to STAY,” Moumita continued as saying.
Replying to a query about the departure of Woojin, Zara, a student of Bangladesh Agricultural University said it is obvious that they are deeply sad, whatever the reason was.
“However, we still respect him. Honestly, I believe, Woojin is still with them, doesn't matter if he is not on the stage, he's in our thoughts. We'll always support them no matter what comes. People have their own reasons to do anything, we cannot disrespect them for doing that. We hope Woojin is doing well,” she said, adding they believe in Stray Kids.
“He is still one of them and he will. We realised that fans are deeply motivated by these guys,” Zara said.
Stray Kids have appeared on different popular TV shows in Korea and outside Korea. They have already appeared in Young Hollywood, Billboard, MTV News, BuzzFeed Celeb, iHeartRadio, Build Series, ET live, Sunday Night etc.
Stray Kids have already won 16 awards, including, AAA, MAMA, SMA and more. The group is starting their first 2020 world tour on 29 January. So let's keep an eye on Stray Kids and see what they're doing next to make us overwhelmed.
The writer is a student of LLB (Honours) in Maritime Law and Policy of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Maritime University
