It’s not too out of the ordinary to see K-pop stars and American or British artists team up (CL and Method Man, G-Dragon and M.I.A. to name a couple.) It is, however, a little more rare to see them pair up with artists from the rest of the Western world.
Five-member Mexican boyband CD9‘s collaboration with the adorable Korean girl group Crayon Pop challenges that expectation. The boys reached out to the girls to record a track called “Get Dumb”—one version in both Spanish and Korean and one version in English.
The band debuted the song with a performance (with the Crayon Pop girls making their appearance via TV screens) at last week’s Mexican Kids’ Choice Awards. The music didn’t officially release until a few days later. Though a fairly standard pop ditty, the song also demonstrates that music transcends both culture and language.
According to Remezcla, CD9 was inspired to reach out to Crayon Pop after one of its members hooked the others on K-pop with Big Bang’s “Bang Bang Bang”. K-pop has developed a fairly strong following in Latin America, made apparent by the many groups that have held tours and concerts in the continent, and in Mexico especially. Mexico has been included as a tour stop for bands like Super Junior and Shinee, among others.
Es viernes y @CD9 lo sabe ✌️https://t.co/c24t6HEjVshttps://t.co/CnFiNqZ9Fj
— Apple Music en Español (@AppleMusicES) August 26, 2016
Crayon Pop, on the other hand, is pretty well known for its international interactions. The girls’ collaboration with CD9 is just the newest addition to their long list of guest spots. Past projects include a special Chinese New Year track, “123 Happy New Year”, with Chinese boyband DT Boys in 2015 and performing as the opening act for Lady Gaga’s ArtRave: The Artpop Ball tour in 2014.
Cross-cultural collaborations are becoming all the more abundant in the music world. Now that CD9 has created the first K-pop/Latino project, perhaps it will pave the road for even more to come.
