Japanese scholar says K-pop’s roots lie in Korea’s 1990s yearning for freedom

The global success of K-pop can be traced back to Korea’s turbulent social atmosphere of the 1990s — a time when young people longed for freedom and sought new ways to express themselves through music, according to Japanese scholar Joho Yamamoto. Yamamoto, a lecturer at Ritsumeikan University in Japan, shared his perspective in a written interview on Tuesday. He described K-pop’s creative power as stemming from two key elements — “a strong message of yearning for freedom” and “a hybrid sensibility that learns from the outside world and turns it into something new.” These, he said, form the foundation of K-pop’s artistic vitality. Last month, Yamamoto published the Korean edition of his book "The Modern History of K-pop." A specialist in Korean studies, modern Korean history and popular culture, he has previously served as a visiting researcher at the Academy of Korean Studies and has written several works in both Japan and Korea. His interest in K-pop began in 1995 when he first visited Korea as a university student. The Japanese edition of "The Modern History of K-popWeiter zum vollständigen Artikel bei Korea Times Weiter zum vollständigen Artikel bei Korea Times