As I'm sure most fans of kpop know. The expansion of idols that take part in production of music has steadily grown over the years. Now initially I had always believed, given the background of the earliest idol pioneers, that producing wholly was an endeavor pursued by individual idols on their own rather than provided by their label.
My logic had been that most of the earlier prolific idol producers used to come from particular backgrounds that would kinda give way to them having a hand in production.
Previously Soloists
Intrinsically tied with a production team
Is in a Band
Now of course there are outliers, G-Dragon being the most obvious example, but overall I had assumed companies weren't really footing the bill, or if they were it was only after the express request of an idol. For idols, in my mind at least, taking up the task of producing was more a bonus than a strived for goal in a company's plan.
My view of course changed with Gen 4 as an upsurge of idols involved with production across so many different companies and prolific through out a lot of groups (if you're of the mal variety) led me to believe that Companies had either by viewing some of the top boy groups, or in a way to cut costs, decided that it was a trend/skill worth pursuing for their idols.
Two recent interviews (by members of the same group no less) highlights an issue however.
Soyeon and Miyeon of (G)I-dle revealed at different times that they both took MIDI classes as trainees. I found this significant because, as I'm sure every knows, while Soyeon was a Cube trainee, Miyeon's training period was under YG. Now from Soyeon's interview, we know that Cube used to solely offer Production classes for male trainees, until she purposefully had to demand it. On Miyeon's side of things we learned that her Production teacher was the hiphop and rnb producer Dress (Who got his start in the scene producing for YG during SMTM).
This is notable because it's somewhat disheartening that both cases seem to (both overtly in soyeon's case and implicitly in Miyeon's) suggest a trend of labels not having an interest in either letting or teaching their female idols production.
