are there any non careers in the industry oh well even though I'm Asian I don't look like the certain typical Sakura type of Asians that's where for me it will be much harder to get in because I think that the beauty standards are entirely different for me but even if those are like the case I still have to try and post and skills organizers it's audition day at born star training center in New York City ten-year-old Jamie and her dance partner Nina are about to perform for a judge from fnc entertainment a major South Korean entertainment company if they impress him they might be selected to go to Asia to train as k-pop artists kpop is short for Korean pop but the chart-topping popularity of South Korean boyband BTS the genre has finally broken ground in the u.s. the audience that typically likes young pop stars didn't have anyone Justin Bieber was missing in action one Direction's members were doing their own thing BTS kind of moved into this space where everybody who had somebody a few years ago there was a lack also the Western markets are now opening up more to non-english music they are a perfect group for globalized age kpop has influenced a generation of young Americans to try their chances of making it in the Korean music industry take 21 year old 10 he took time off from college to pursue his dream I wanted to become like a pop star two or three years ago when I was in high school so I guess I fell in love with kpop because you know it's a different language and also how it has dancing and singing together why do you want to be a kpop star so you know it's very very hard to be a kpop so you have to train do you think you're ready to take that on can you think so in South Korea kpop stars are not born they're made they're often products of training schools where kids undergo rigorous instruction on how to sing dance and be the perfect pop star while these training schools are common in South Korea born star training center claims to be the only k-pop school in the country so what's the difference between the training center here versus a training center in Korea Korea we give a little bit hotter training more hour but here we will let them charge most our student 10% is happy for 90% they deal with one of your staff that's what we train you and aim for nineteen-year-old TJ has only been training a porn star for five months how has the school helped you improve coaches really gave me insight on like stuff I didn't know about my always sound I'm more aware of like like the techniques that they've taught me like breathing wise taking more breaths and I think just the confidence like it's been higher ten and TJ auditioned as part of their group havock three of the members including the duo are Tibetan American one members Pakistani American and another is Filipino American do you all have the same goal or like wanting to be regularly kpop industry yeah it's there a market for like non-koreans to become kpop stars for non Asians at the moment there is no real market in the kpop industry you have a lot of Korean Americans you have Chinese Americans who are going into the kpop world while it appears that East Asians have a leg up in the industry there have actually been a few non agents that have made it on stage in Korea Alexandra Reed she was part of the girl group called Renia for a while and sometimes they just added her in like as if she's an extra like featured rapper they didn't really seem to be like they knew what to do with her Reed has since come out about the struggles of being an african-american kpop star and eventually left the group then there's exp edition [Music] while the group has a decent following on social media they haven't released a song since early this year the widette interesting in USA because they speak English in perfect that's what they mean very very profitable for these companies to have multilingual speakers but right now I don't know of any companies at least not any of the big companies that have non-asian trainees jamie is korean-american and so if she were selected to your train in Korea would you allow her to go - already preparing everything they're planning already but you know copy it down the world before enrolling at born star ten actually spent all last year training at a center in Seoul South Korea what was the training like the classes are usually around to 2 to 3 hours yeah I'd have like maybe the total of like or on like 8 to 7 to 8 hours I'd be practicing and how did you feel compared to the other trainees I'm more of a vocalist rather than a like a dancer got to dance with people who were moving dancing rest almost their entire life fully everything was too fast-paced where everything was too competitive where I felt like I wasn't ready to be able to maintain that kind of pressure that's why I guess I came back to the states and like you know try to like be able to get better and then hopefully come back again training to be a kpop star is hard take it from me what hard work does eventually pay off at porn stars during the auditions TJ got a callback to do a solo I had to introduce myself and then they took pictures of me like from all my angles I felt like kind of uncomfortable because it was like I feel like a robot but then I realize like this is how the industry is so you need to get used to stuff like this it seems like image is very important when you're trying to become a star yeah so the best-looking stars tend to do better trainees have come out and spoken about like how they've had eating disorders because of it you have to watch your weight you have to workout you have to have abs if your company says you have to have abs Jamie also had a callback now the main issue is that she's too young and so a lot of the feedback is her voice and her body is going to change they're not gonna pick her until after 13 in other fact she's practicing she's learning the goal for many a porn star is to train hard and continue to audition for Korean companies that travel to the States to seek out foreign talent how many actually make it if you have a hundred groups in each one that has at least three members you have at least 300 kids who you know make it into the group that means hundreds of other ones aren't making it into those same groups so it's really tough it's the average kid is not gonna make it you have to really not only want it but also you know work hard for it it's extremely competitive the trainees at born star are not deterred in the past year the school is sent to students at Korea I mean I'm kinda lucky I feel like maybe we training must be good see your goal is to go back to Korea yeah my goal is to hopefully go back to Korea and like achieve my dream how do you think you'll like cope with being in Korea there's not as much leisure time so like you're having a girl is allowed for most of those companies it'll definitely be hard in the beginning especially with the language barrier but I'm willing to work hard every day [Music]