The K-pop craze shows no signs of dying down in the Philippines: Fan meets and concerts continue to sell out as Korean celebrities and groups are welcomed into the country. Diehard fans commit to memorizing lyrics in the Korean language, even learning it to better relate to their idols.
It seems to make sense then that Filipinos themselves venture into the genre. One Filipino boy group named SB19 has done just that, promoting the aesthetics and catchy dance melodies of K-pop with Filipino lyrics in a genre called Pinoy pop or P-pop.
SB19, which comprises Sejun, Stell, Josh, Ken, and Justin, trained in South Korea under Korean entertainment company ShowBT, which has a Philippine branch. It released a music video back in July for “Go Up,” which has 200,000 views as of this writing.
Though SB19 launched back in October 2018, the group gained online attention recently after it released a dance practice video to accompany its “Go Up” music video on Monday, Sept. 2. A K-pop fan account (@BAE_Sodu) tweeted about the video on Monday and it has garnered 800,000 views on Twitter as of this writing.
So there is this Filipino Boy Group called SB19. They are under a Philippine branch of a Korean Company called ShowBT.
The producers are korean but the lyrics are in tagalog (written by the members) but i didn't feel any cringe at all! Their dance is also great 💯 pic.twitter.com/6bDtGxBnQ3
— Lyra 🌷 (@BAE_Sodu) September 2, 2019
The dance practice video on YouTube has over 3,000 comments, with some fans stating that they were confused to find out that they could understand the lyrics because they thought it was a K-pop group.
“[It’s] so weird cuz know i understand and know what [they’re] saying for once and the song is bomb,” said YouTube user bangtan’s first uwu.
“Legit thought they’re Koreans singing in Filipino,” said ksj mma.
Many said they were impressed with the clean and synchronized dance moves, as well as the song and vocals.
“They are worth watching! The vocals and energy plus they are very synchronized,” commented one Larra Semilla.
“SB19 sets the standard for boygroups here in the Philippines!” said YouTuber leernbn_.
Looks like the boys are going nowhere but up! /ra