How DKB Arrived At Their First Music Show Nomination

For the first time this week, DKB stood at the center of SBS The Show’s award ceremony stage to hear if they scored first place.

This was a welcome and shocking surprise for the nine piece boy group under Brave Brothers Entertainment. Similar to their label-mates and seniors Brave Girls, DKB is a vastly underestimated, supremely talented K-Pop group stuck in nugudom (“nugu” is Korean for “who?”). Their output has been consistently fiery and electric, but nothing has sounded as mature as their latest single “24/7”, the song that landed them on stage at The Show. 

This summer DKB stomped back onto variety show stages with the boisterous track “Sober”. The song sounded like a party pushed to the limit, and it provided the group’s hip-hop unit the opportunity to showcase their underseen skills. While “Sober” feels more akin to several big boy group songs of the summer, like music by Stray Kids or Enhypen, DKB is a group that is best heard when the track leaves them room to groove.

“Autumn”, the mini-album that “24/7” leads as the first single, freshens up the group’s sound. The boys seem to delight in the change of pace this release provides them. Each of the album’s tracks are all quiet, somber pieces that displays the group’s harmonies and vocals more than anything they’ve released in the past. They’ve also begun to catch the attention of Korea: “24/7” gave the group their biggest comeback numbers yet with the video hitting 12 million views in less than a week after it’s release. This burst of energy, finally, led to their nomination on The Show.

“24/7” alludes that DKB has done their homework, too: The video, which is minimalistic and relies on three solid color palettes, feels reminiscent of some of the best K-Pop boy groups of the second generation. Iconic tracks like “Fiction” by BEAST or “Back” by INFINITE immediately spring to mind as I listen. Their stages, too, lean towards the simplicity and moodiness that deftly call back some of the finest visuals from the mid 2010s 

So in honor of DKB’s first nomination on a music show, a feat that few groups can receive from smaller, mid-tier labels, I want to think about how they arrived at this point. 

DKB’s edge has always been their unpredictability.

When they debuted in 2020, the boys were given a much larger amount of creative control by Brave Brothers than most rookie groups are granted. The group holds a dance and performance team who are in charge of choreographing their stages, and many of the members are songwriters. The music they wrote as trainees would occasionally be released as tracks on DKB’s albums, a practice that is almost unheard of in K-Pop.

“I had written a self-empowering song titled ‘Samsung’ for the monthly evaluation,” GK told the Korean Herald in 2020. He was speaking about the monthly evaluations that trainees go through where they are judged on topics ranging from their appearance to their choreography and stage presence. “I wanted to approach hip-hop, which is usually serious and heavy, in a more interesting way. So I likened one’s confidence with the Korean tech giant, a symbol of success. My idea was taken, and it went into our debut album.” 

Brave Brothers invested deeply in the members with the hope that DKB would become triple threats, or, as they are often proclaimed in K-Pop communities, “all rounders”. To achieve this, the members were given Chinese and Japanese language classes, as well as training in DJ’ing and acrobatics. They are also well versed in hip-hop and their stage presence, particularly from rapper E-Chan, often feels closer to hip hop artist Post Malone than K-Pop heavyweights BTS. . 

”We had over seven lessons. It’s been busier than ever, more than when we were students,”  E-Chan told the Herald about all of the training they underwent. “As for me, I learned DJing, which helped me understand hip-hop in a wider, more in-depth perspective.” .

The group’s leader D1 was adamant that these lessons made them versatile artists who could sink their teeth into any concept. “Those lessons gave us a competitive edge. Our biggest strength is that we are capable of producing what we want. We are not confined to any framework,” he said. 

I believe it’s the group’s ability to rip apart any sort of framework that has led to their profile growing, both domestically and globally. This summer the members completed their first North American tour and will soon head back for round two with a visit to South America and two dates in North America. When I saw their concert in Atlanta, I was stuck by how powerful and free-spirited their performance was. While DKB’s concert hit all of the right marks for a K-Pop show, including the “ending ment” statements and fanservice, the performers themselves were full of suprirses. Their ability to shock me as acrobats, gifted vocalists, wildly talented dancers and rappers stayed with me. The group felt like a surprise gift that I stumbled upon rather unexpectedly. Since the show, I can’t stop thinking about how much more they have to give.

DKB’s barbed performance style portrays artists who are unafraid to experiment. Over the past six months, the members have reinvented their image and their sound as something sleeker and more elegant than anything they’ve released before. DKB embraces change with “24/7”, and in effect, they are finding a pathway to the mainstream. This road to K-Pop superstardom is one that I wager a group as innovative as DKB can remake in their image.