What happens when League of Legends and K-pop collides? The game’s very own group of pop stars K/DA, comprised of the game’s characters Ahri, Evelynn, Kai’Sa and Akali. Debuting with “POP/STARS,” K/DA features the members sporting new popstar skins in an impressive animated music video, taking all the colors, sets and dance moves commonly seen in K-pop music videos to the next level. Within the first 24 hours of its release, the music video reached 6.1 million views on YouTube.
Behind the voices are G-IDLE’s Soyeon (Akali) and Miyeon (Ahri), Madison Beer (Evelynn) and Jaira Burns (Kai’sa), making this the latest collaboration between South Korean and American musical artists. What’s more, the singers also played a role in producing the animation, performing the choreography while wearing motion capture suits.
On November 3rd, the four singers came together to perform “POP/STARS” live with AR versions of the virtual pop stars at the League of Legends’ 2018 opening ceremony in Incheon, South Korea.
For a behind the scenes look, Riot Games revealed a video of Ellen Kim, the choreographer, performing the dance with Bailey Sok, Stevie Doré and Eileen Harman. Also, Cube Entertainment released a video documenting Soyeon and Miyeon’s experience working on the months-long project.
Mai Nguyen
Editor-in-Chief at Asia Pacific Arts.
Feel free to send me a note on Twitter to @hellomailee.
Mai Nguyen 
