Soompi & JYP’s ‘Rising Legends’ Global K-Pop Talent Search – Winners Announced

Soompi, a division of Viki, Inc., and the leading source for Korean pop culture, news and fandom, along with K-Pop powerhouse record label JYP Entertainment, today announced the three finalists of “Rising Legends,” an online global talent audition aimed at discovering the next global K-Pop stars. More than 5,000 hopefuls submitted videos from 112 countries; recommendations from a panel of experts from Billboard, Buzzfeed, Fuse and Soompi, were considered along with nearly a million fan votes after several rounds of online voting.

The three category finalists in the areas of Singing, Dancing and Rapping are: Subin L. from Korea, a recent transplant from Ireland (singing), Alex S. from the United States (dancing) and Asel H. from Turkey (rapping). The three will get the opportunity to interview one-on-one with a JYP talent scout for a chance to become signed by the premier talent agency. E.Den, the finalist of Soompi’s previous online talent competition, was signed and debuted as a member of Nega Network’s LC9 in 2013. Soompi is the publishing arm of Viki, the global TV streaming service powered by fans.

“When we set out to find the next K-Pop sensation, we had no idea that we would be so blown away by the level of talent in many of the audition videos,” said Susan Kang, Head of Viki Publishing and founder of Soompi. “We’re thrilled to be partnering with JYP as the platform for super fans and aspiring artists from all over the world.”

Blake Lee, Senior Manager of JYP Entertainment A&R Team, continued, “We’re so impressed by the diversity of the applicants; it’s great to see K-pop’s continued, phenomenal popularity outside of Asia, which is one important reason why we partnered with the Soompi team on this project. JYP Entertainment takes pride in fostering global artists, with ‘Rising Legends’ and JYP Audition being the first step toward the discovery of amazing international talent.

During the course of the audition event, hopefuls had the chance to show off their singing, rapping, and dancing skills by uploading a video of themselves performing a cover or an original song, resulting in more than 2.5 million views on YouTube. One third of the auditions came from the U.S. and Canada, with submissions from countries as diverse as Nigeria, Iran, Vietnam and Sweden. The finalists were determined by a combination of fan votes and judges’ scores.

Home to legendary artists like 2PM, GOT7, TWICE, Wonder Girls, Park Jin Young, and more, JYP Entertainment is a South Korean entertainment company founded by Park Jin Young based in Seoul, South Korea. The company operates a record label, talent agency, music production company, event management and concert production company as well as a music publishing house. The record label is also considered one of the three big record labels in the K-pop industry, alongside S.M. Entertainment and YG Entertainment.

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