K-pop agency JYP Entertainment, home to top-tier artists like TWICE, ITZY and Stray Kids, has teamed up with Republic Records to debut a new American girl group, which will hold auditions in the US this September.
On July 25, the two agencies released a video featuring JYP Entertainment founder and chairman Park Jin-young and Republic Records founder and CEO Monte Lipman announcing their upcoming venture ‘A2K’.
“The name of this project is ‘A2K’, which is short for ‘America2Korea’. So the final artist that comes out of this procedure will be the first American artist made with a K-pop system,” Park said.
“It’s like talented artists who go through a training system like an Olympic gymnast,” he added. “This is the K-pop artist that global audiences fell in love with because of their dedication, discipline and hard work and the values they carry. This is what separates them from many artists”.
“We will find, identify and curate this amazing talent coming from America,” Lipman continued. “But we are applying the K-pop system, the JYP system in the development of a super group, which we have never seen before.”
The ‘A2K’ project will follow a competition format, starting with in-person auditions in the US, which will be open to US and Canadian applicants between the ages of 12 and 16. Auditions will be held in five cities in September 2022. Check out the full list of audition dates and cities for JYP Entertainment and Republic Records’ ‘A2K’ project below:
September 2022
Saturday 10 – Atlanta, Georgia
Wednesday 14 – Chicago, Illinois
Saturday, Sunday 17, 18 – New York, New York
Tuesday 20 – Dallas, Texas
Friday-Sunday 23-25 - Los Angeles, California
Selected applicants will attend a bootcamp in Los Angeles, after which selected semi-finalists will travel to JYP Entertainment headquarters in Seoul. The contestants will then train with the agency’s hit makers and choreographers to compete for a spot in the group’s final line-up.
