You were selected for the 2023 Billboard International Power Players list in recognition of the success of XG’s debut and their appearance in the Mediabase Top 40 Radio Airplay charts, the first time ever for Japanese female artists. Could you start out by discussing some of the challenges you faced with XG’s debut?
Kuroiwa: We launched XGALX, a global artist project behind artists like XG, six years ago, in 2017. This was when the world’s attention was first turning to K-pop. Of course, K-pop already had its fans at the time, but this was about when it started to establish an overwhelming presence due to BTS. Avex has a long history of producing K-pop artists such as BoA, TVXQ, and BIGBANG. We formed a partnership with S.M.entertainment in 2001, and we created a label with YG Entertainment. The strong impression I got through our activities with them was that they were keeping a close eye on the Japanese and global markets. Leveraging this experience, we launched the XGALX project with the aim of creating global hits. Initially, we were aiming for a 2020 debut, but the COVID pandemic but a halt to any major moves, so the debut ended up being in 2022. We built up even more knowledge in the intervening time, so in the end it turned out for the best.
XG is based in Korea, but all of the members are Japanese. How does it differ from K-pop?
Kuroiwa: We have a great respect for K-pop, but what really sets XG apart is their originality and freshness. We built the group together with our partners around the world, taking the best elements from Korea, Japan, and the US. The potential of the members, the music production, the video, and the fashion all came together, overlapping and giving birth to XG. We didn’t want to make them a J-pop or K-pop group, but instead create an all-new genre, X-Pop.
The members of the group had a lot of different ideas about what language the lyrics should be in. Some said that since the members are Japanese, they should sing in Japanese, but ultimately they came to the conclusion that since they’d be targeting the global market, including the Korean market, English would be best. None of the members are native speakers, so we really focused on pronunciation from the very start of their artist development.