Why XG Is a New Kind of Global Girl Group

Last weekend, XG, a seven member girl group from Japan, headlined 88Rising’s Head in the Clouds Festival in New York. It was their first performance in North America, and due to plenty of viral content, including their latest single “SHOOTING STAR”, they were one of the most anticipated acts. 

XG ascended into pop culture seemingly out of nowhere in late 2022. On TikTok, the group regularly goes viral for their rap skills, their flawless choreography and their cool style. In April, Jackson Wang performed the girl group’s single “LEFT RIGHT” with guest singer Ciara at Coachella. The move was likely a marketing ploy meant to introduce XG to Wang’s large fanbase of K-Pop adjacent fans because two weeks later, Ciara and Wang hopped on a remix of the song with XG. 

But XG is a unique case study, because along with groups like BLACKSWAN or Wang, they are performers who are largely accepted inside K-Pop online spaces, even if none of the artists are Korean.  

This expansion in the definition of what makes a K-Pop group is largely thanks to the original big three K-Pop companies. JYP and SM Entertainment, particularly, have invested heavily in global Asian artists. Their groups, ranging from GOT7 (JYP) to aespa (SM), feature artists from Japan, North America and China. SM even debuted an all Chinese boy group, WayV, who promote and train as K-Pop artists, even though no member in the group is Korean.

This was a strategic tactic made by K-Pop companies. By adding members from countries like Japan, North America, and China, the companies can tap into a new country’s fanbase because of a perceived home country pride. This has resulted in an economic boom in South Korea. According to the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, the music business built a trade surplus of about $3.1 billion for intellectual property of music and images in 2021. In comparison, this was built up from $800 million in 2020.

Chinese fan bars, online communities where fans congregate to support their favorite idol, also contribute heavily to the success of K-Pop groups. In 2021, South Korean music chart Hanteo estimated that over 10 percent of K-Pop albums were purchased by Chinese fans. These albums were heavily purchased by Chinese fan bars – and they were bought in bulk. 

The K-Pop industry is known for its fierce work ethic; a reliance on perfection; and on idols whose beauty and talent make them seem otherworldly. “I think K-Pop is the training system,” Jennie said in the 2020 BLACKPINK documentary. But what happens when companies debut and promote groups from outside the K-Pop system? Are they still considered a K-Pop group? But I think we need to move beyond just focusing on K-Pop, and instead talk about identity, specifically Asian identity.

For many artists who are not Korean, finding an audience is challenging: Record labels and the media are uninterested in covering acts that don’t fit into easy categories. Streaming numbers for AAPI artists, too, reflect a disconnect between fans who support K-Pop, but are not interested in expanding beyond their favorite marketable idols.  Korean independent artists, too, face challenges without the K-Pop machine behind them.

XG represents a new class of idols, though: Artists who come from Japan but are trained with the same level of precision and skill as a Korean idol, and who promote largely in the same way a K-Pop group does. But there is a key difference: XG would like to be known as a global group. 

XGALX’s CEO Masato Matsuura is not interested in the group being considered a K-Pop group. 

In July 2022, Matsuura gave a controversial interview about how we should define XG. “Just because we are working with Korean producers doesn't mean the group is working with a Korean label. Everyone is Japanese. It isn’t like K-Pop. It’s more like America,” he said. “I am emphatically saying everyone is Japanese.” 

XGALAX, XG’s label, is a subsidiary of AVEX, a Japanese Entertainment conglomerate that was founded in 1988 by Max Matsuura. Avex was instrumental in producing the modern J-Pop industry, and it has inroads with K-Pop. When BoA debuted in Japan in 2002, Avex was the company that distributed her music.  

“Why do we have to lose to Koreans? The Japanese can do it also,” Matsuura continued. “Even Koreans sent a singer like BoA to Japan to mimic us.” But his next comment reflected a growing frustration within Japan’s music industry, and perhaps the reason for his insistence that XG not be labeled a K-Pop group. “Since we were on the losing side, we asked to work with Korean producers, and we did it.” 

For a long time, Japan never needed the rest of the world to buy its music. But K-Pop’s global success took Japanese labels like Avex by surprise. The U.S. has historically been the toughest market for Japanese labels to break into, even if the music industry does incredibly well being contained at home.According to the Recording Industry of Japan, CD and vinyl sales made up 68% of the 283.2-billion-yen ($2.46 billion) recorded music market. Even digital sales are growing: 2021 saw a 14% jump in digital sales to 89.5 billion yen ($624 million). 

But Avex has struggled to keep up with Korea’s IP content and soft power. “Among its challenges, sales of the company’s biggest J-pop artists, Hamasaki and Koda Kumi, peaked more than a decade ago,” Alexei Barrionuevo wrote in a Billboard article. 

“The Korean companies are at this stage more superior and advanced in terms of breaking global artists,” Avex CEO Katsumi Kuroiwa told Billboard. “Unfortunately, Japanese artists haven’t been able to gain fans around the world like South Korea…and that’s where we have to learn.”

Avex may have finally found a star in XG. Things started to move incredibly fast for the group when they dropped “SHOOTING STAR” in January. The song almost instantly went viral on TikTok thanks to English lyrics which helped them appeal to a more global audience, and their style, which is branded off of Y2K. For two weeks they promoted on Korean variety shows, which at least signified a slight acceptance among the stalwarts in the K-Pop industry. But XGALX’s main priority seems to be the West, and like several Western-facing Asian superstars such as Wang, they are entering uncharted territory. 

XG’s producer, Simon Jakops who debuted in 2013 in the boy group DMTN, addressed this directly in an Instagram post in January. “A multinational staff from Korea, Japan, the U.S. and China are participating in our project,” Jakops wrote. “All of the XG artists are Japanese, but I want to present XG's music and performance to more people around the world without prejudice and regulations on the region or language.”