“This word means a lot to me. The Philippines is my mother’s home country and my second home. Without it, I wouldn’t have been able to dance or stand on this stage,” Youn Dongyeon explained.
K-Pop has been a household force in the music industry in the Philippines since 2010.
Filipinos have always been known to bring their talents to the world stage. So far, only two K-Pop idols with Filipino heritage have debuted in South Korea.
Kriesha Chu, who is a Filipino-American citizen, entered the world of K-Pop in 2016 through a reality show. Now, she is expanding her career with OST songs for different K-Dramas.
Another is the girl group Cignature’s Belle, who is also half-Filipino.
At present, there is one young Filipino who is slowly gaining attention in his journey in the K-Pop world.
"Loud" is a survival show produced by one of the most influential collaborations in the K-Pop world. It is a collaboration between JYP Entertainment's CEO Park JinYoung and P-Nation's CEO PSY.
The show involves contestants from different countries who are competing for a spot in one of two groups.
On 14 August, half-Filipino and half-Korean Youn Dongyeon was cast into JYP Entertainment on the K-pop survival show Loud, which means he’s halfway into his K-pop boy group debut.
During his audition for Loud, Youn used the word “Philippines” to describe himself.
“This word means a lot to me. The Philippines is my mother’s home country and my second home. Without it, I wouldn’t have been able to dance or stand on this stage,” he explained.
Youn Dongyeon is only 17 years old but through the survival show, he has displayed his raw and natural talents with his singing and dancing. He performed a powerful dance cover of BTS’ song My Time during his audition for the show.
He gave an impressive vampire-themed performance with Wanna One's "Burn It Up," and he talked about two different bloods of him coming together in his self-written rap during the Casting Round.
Luckily, JYP had a lot of empty spots, and he moved forward to get Dongyeon to his team. PSY looked disappointed that he couldn't go forward for Dongyeon since he already used most of his Casting Cards earlier.
With the cards stacking up to his favor, we might get our first K-Pop boy group idol from the Philippines.
Loud’s final episode will air on September 11 and will be broadcast live in South Korea.
Tags: #KPop, #FilipinoKoreans, #YounDongyeon, #Loud