Reality-TV contest K-pop Goes Hollywood to pick 'all-American boy' for a new group

NCT is going Hollywood, literally: The popular K-pop group will pick its next member from America through a reality TV competition series called K-pop Goes Hollywood, the band’s label, SM Entertainment, has told the Post.

The series, stylised in all capitals except for “goes”, is a collaboration between the South Korean entertainment company and American media company MGM Television, producer of popular programmes including The Voice, a reality singing competition series shown on American network NBC.

It was previously announced that 21 contestants would compete to join NCT, and on Monday SM confirmed the series as currently planned would select one winner to join a new K-pop outfit to be called NCT Hollywood. Members of NCT will appear on K-pop goes Hollywood.

NCT is a 23-strong boy band whose members sometimes perform together but mostly appear in subgroups such as NCT Dream, NCT 127 and WayV.

“We are looking for one winner for this season, but some details of the show are subject to change throughout production,” said a representative of SM C&C, the label’s production company.

Contestants on K-pop Goes Hollywood will be selected in the United States and flown to South Korea to train and compete for the chance to become a K-pop star. During last month’s SM Congress event, label bosses said they were looking for an “all American guy” to join NCT.

NCT’s first singles, The 7th Sense and Without You, performed by NCT U, a subgroup with a rotating line-up, were released in 2016. Since then, the band have jointly released three albums featuring all the current NCT members, in 2018 and 2020.

Last year’s Resonance was the most recent release to feature all the currently active members.

NCT Hollywood would be the fourth official subgroup under NCT.

The first, NCT 127, celebrated their fifth anniversary last week, while the youth-oriented NCT Dream made history recently by releasing one of the bestselling Korean albums of all time, Hot Sauce. The China-oriented WayV are set to release new music later this year.

SM says additional projects are set to arrive from NCT U.

This article was first published in South China Morning Post.