South Korean K-pop: North Korea explodes industry as ‘slave-like exploitation’ amid Kim Jong Un’s repression of foreign media

South Korean K-pop: North Korea explodes industry as ‘slave-like exploitation’ amid Kim Jong Un’s repression of foreign media

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Over the weekend, an article was published by a North Korean propaganda website accuses K-pop record companies of having ‘slave-like exploitation’ of highly successful bands such as BTS and Blackpink.

The piece on North Korea’s Arirang Meari website claims that K-pop artists from an early age “had incredibly unfair contracts, who were detained during their training and treated as slaves after being robbed of their body, mind and soul by the heads of evil and corrupt. art-related conglomerates. “

The K-pop industry is notorious and difficult to break into, but the North Korean article contains no evidence of its allegations. It was only a few paragraphs long and quoted ‘reports’ in other media.

North Korea has long been accused of large-scale human rights violations, including subjecting political prisoners to forced labor and slave-like conditions, according to a major UN report in 2014.

The piece was probably part of pressure from North Korean propagandists to crack down on foreign media. While Pyongyang’s rigorous censorship equipment limits the movies, music, television, newspapers, and books that citizens can use, the technology has made it easier to smuggle in content from abroad, especially on USB sticks.

Offenders say that average North Koreans caught consuming foreign content, especially from South Korea and the United States, are often severely punished. Such laws have historically not prevented people from doing so, but the situation may change.

After years of poor economic performance, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un appears to be doubling central planning as a way to spur growth, which he set out at a major political meeting earlier this year as his highest long-term priority for the regime. has. Some experts believe the renewed emphasis on government control extends to propaganda efforts and consumption of foreign content.

Although Kim’s rule has long targeted people who watch or read foreign material, North Korea’s legislature passed a new law in December requiring citizens and organizations to prevent the “spread of anti-socialist ideology” – in the practice that usually means any content that has not been approved by government censors.

Kim also suggested in February that greater control over social content could come. He called for a more “intensified fight against anti-socialist and non-socialist practices than ever before.”

Musical deviation on the Korean Peninsula

Despite centuries of shared culture, music in communist North Korea and capitalist South Korea has developed very differently since the Peninsula was divided into two political entities after World War II.

K-pop has become a multi-million dollar industry with worldwide recognition. South Korea even blew K-pop across the border as part of its propaganda efforts in previous years when relations between the two Koreas were on ice.

Music in North Korea, meanwhile, is an important part of everyday life and serves as an important propaganda tool to promote the ruling Kim family and the fight against imperial aggression.

North Korea’s monopoly on creative expression makes the state’s songs – and therefore their approved messages – unique.

“There is no evidence that people create their own music outside of what is allowed centrally,” ethnomusicologist and North Korean music expert Keith Howard said in an interview last year. ‘The only recording company is state-owned and there are no actions that can be allowed outside of what is authorized.

CNN’s Oscar Holland contributed to this report.

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