Will The Black Label be the first K-Pop company to focus on success in the West?

The Black Label started in 2015 as a boutique label for Teddy (and Kush), but there are signs that Teddy is preparing for something bigger.

Teddy (CEO, main producer for Blackpink and Somi), Soonhoc (lead manager), and Vince (artist-producer) grew up in the US. They all speak English fluently and understand the culture.

Somi (born in Canada, fluent English) was chosen as the first (and only, so far) pop artist on the label (everyone else mainly produces for others and/or themselves). Teddy won her over by talking about his plans for her, which likely included eventually moving into the Western market once she had improved her skills and established herself. Somi signed to Interscope last year (alongside BP), and has done a few western promos on big western Youtube channels. Following Somi's success in 2021, Teddy might have decided Somi was ready to start the Western push, since she has recently came out with an MV for the English b-side 'Anymore', and has promoted in English on 'First We Feast' and Vogue, hinting at upcoming "crazy news".

TBL has a girl group in development. Although they are associated with YG, TBL was still a new company without any idols before Somi joined, so selecting Somi was a statement about the direction that TBL was going with its future idols, and a way to attract top trainees. They have used Somi's vlog series "I Am Somi" to advertise how good it is to be an artist at the label (work directly with and be mentored by Teddy, more artistic independence, close supportive staff, plenty of brand deals, get close to other big artists like BP), as well as subtlety establishing the type of artists that they are looking for by using Somi as the representative (Somi is basically TBL's ambassador: watch her episode of 'The Manager' for another example). They even showed Somi sitting in on a monthly assessment of the trainees (without showing their faces).

The GG might follow the same path as Somi, first improving their skills in Korea, and then making an international debut (assuming that is what Somi is up to).

Quote from penguinsgg

jyp?

External Content www.youtube.com

Content embedded from external sources will not be displayed without your consent.

Display all external content

Through the activation of external content, you agree that personal data may be transferred to third party platforms. We have provided more information on this in our privacy policy.

Quote from quarkie

Isn't this what a lot of kpop groups are doing though??

It's not their primary focus from the beginning. They reach a certain size in Korea/Japan/China and then try to push West if they think they can to expand their market (and usually fail). I'm saying it's Teddy's main goal from the beginning, and that's why he has made the choice to choose Somi as the first pop artist on the label. We'll see how fluent the tblngg members are at english. It's not a coincidence that half of Teddy's last group (BP) were english-fluent at debut, and signed with Interscope only 2 years after debut and performed at Lollapalooza only 3 years after debut.

Quote from vicll

Interesting thoughts you had. But do you suppose that if this is true then YG main NGG will instead be more focused in the Asian market then?

Maybe. That is a good point. How does Teddy and YG plan on avoiding stepping on each other's toes with their ngg? ygngg is probably going to be first (around the end of this year), and tblngg probably wont be much more than a year later since the trainees would be about 4-5 years in at that point, and BP's 7 year contract will be up for renewal (not saying they wont renew, but Teddy must be planning for the possibility like all companies).

He could be planning to focus more on the West than ygngg. Perhaps tblngg will sign with Interscope at debut.

Quote from vicll

From what I heard TBL has been supposedly planning to debut a GG from some time already since 2018 or so, but after the scandals of YG in 2019 they seemed to go quiet and alot of the people who were said to be trainees then seemed to have left. I remember that before Treasure Box aired Yang Hyunsuk was potentially planning to debut a GG in a reality show and there were rumors that this show would include both YG and TBL trainees

Maybe some left, but that was mostly YG not TBL. They definitely have current trainees, and they were willing to tease them in "I Am Somi" (posted in the OP). It was just a monthly evaluation and Teddy wasn't there, so the group is clearly far from formed, but its probably not more than two years away so they would still conflict with ygngg.

Quote from vicll

Before this "I Am Somi" episode I think even fans that are interested in the new GG that try to follow very closely who is supposedly a trainee didn't know that TBL still had trainees but they may have been recruited later, and even the YGNGG looks like they will debut with completly unknow trainees since all the know ones seem to have left with the possible exception of one named Seojin.

It's interesting that Somi is acting as a judge in monthly evaluations, I know that YG had BB and 2NE1 in the Win: Who is Next and BP and Winner were in Treasure Box and some others judging in the past, but those weren't monthly evaluation, they were special performances for a reality show to decide a new group to debut

That seemed to be the first time Somi did that. Probably because they wanted to show that they have trainees and are working on a girl group. If they were still focused on recruiting more girls then they would advertise more (I think the last update on their audition FB page was in 2020), or maybe they are just poaching YG trainees. If the trainee wants to be produced by Teddy then they should join TBL, not YG.

Somi is the 6th most searched female idol in the US in 2021.

1-4: BP girls

5: IU (hard to get good estimate because of her name)

6: Somi

6: Irene

8: Momo

9: Tzuyu