SEOUL, South Korea — Lee Soo Man initially resisted the title. “King of K-pop” sounded too brash, too nightclub-esque—like something you might see on a neon sign in Itaewon, a nightlife district in the South Korean capital of Seoul once popular with American soldiers and foreign visitors. “I asked them, 'Isn't this the Father of K-pop?' the 73-year-old recalled during a recent interview with The Associated Press.
He was discussing the title of an Amazon Prime documentary about his career. Producers insisted that a bolder moniker would resonate better with American audiences. After some hesitation, Lee relented. “I had to submit to their decision.”
The compromise speaks to Lee's pragmatic approach to pushing South Korean artists into the American mainstream, a three-decade endeavor that has often required him to make concessions but never wavered from his vision. Now, as the founder of SM Entertainment and widely regarded as the architect of K-pop's global expansion, Lee will be inducted into the Asian Hall of Fame on Saturday along with basketball legend Yao Ming, Olympic figure skater Michelle Kwan and rock icon Yoshiki, among others.
Lee remains a prominent but controversial figure in K-pop history. His label pioneered the industry's intensive training system, recruiting performers as young as elementary school age and putting them through years of rigorous training. Some of its artists have challenged their contracts as unfair, sparking broader debate about industry practices.
The recognition comes as Lee is back in the spotlight following his controversial and high-profile departure from the agency he founded in 1995. It was a management battle that included a public feud with his nephew and a bidding war over his shares. Since then, he has been keeping busy, debuting with new group A20 MAY in both China and the US. It is also investing in high-end manufacturing technology from a small Chinese firm.
Lee was born in South Korea and received a master's degree in computer engineering in the United States. That technical background later influenced his approach to everything from visualization and advanced production techniques (he said he re-watched The Matrix to rethink filming techniques) to pioneering complex “worldviews” and virtual avatars for his K-pop groups.
For Lee, the Hall of Fame honor “validates that K-pop has become a genre that the mainstream is now paying attention to”—recognition that came after costly lessons and years of trial and error.
Lee contributed about $5 million to BoA's American debut in 2009 with “Eat You Up,” one of the first songs by a South Korean artist written and produced by mostly Western producers, a bold early attempt to bring K-pop into the U.S. mainstream. But since there were few widely recognized Asian artists in American popular culture at the time, the market was not ready. After almost two years, BoA – already a megastar in Korea and Japan – decided to return home. Lee said the experience left him with lasting regrets.
“When I asked the songwriters to reconsider ‘Eat You Up,’ they said no,” Lee recalls. “If we changed that, I believe we would achieve much better results.”
This failure taught Lee that K-pop needed to attract talent from around the world while maintaining creative control over adapting songs for the global market. His search for the perfect tracks has taken him all over the world.
“One day I heard a song that was so good that I couldn’t put it down,” he said, recalling the track that later became “Dreams Come True” for SES, the girl group of the late 1990s. “I could have bought a license for the song in South Korea, Hong Kong or Sweden. But I wanted to play it safe, so I found a Finnish address, went to meet the songwriter directly, signed a contract and brought it back.”
At the time, leading Western songwriters favored Japan, the world's second largest music market. “European songwriters were willing to sell their songs to Asia,” Lee explained. “That’s how we ended up creating a system where music from Europe, Asia and America could come together.”
This fusion has become a hallmark of K-pop. Lee also helped pioneer another innovation: developing fictional universes or “worldviews” for groups like EXO and Aespa—an approach to storytelling that would later be adopted throughout the industry, including by groups like BTS.
The concept arose during his time in the US, where he witnessed how MTV turned music into a visual medium. “But we only have three or four minutes,” he said. “How do we express the dramatic, cinematic elements in such a short time?”
Lee's solution was to create continuous narratives that unfold across multiple music videos and releases—think the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but for pop groups.
Unable to attract famous screenwriters, Lee developed the storylines himself. The strategy has proven to be prescient: these interconnected stories give fans around the world a reason to keep an eye out for the bands return as they await the next chapter in the unfolding saga.
Despite K-pop's global success, Lee remains focused on Asia's potential. He sees South Korea as a creative hub where talent from around the world learns production. “Korea must become a country of producers,” he said.
With the Asia-Pacific region home to more than half the world's population, he sees it as an inevitable future entertainment hub.
His latest venture with A20 MAY, which operates in both China and the US, tests this vision in one of Asia's most challenging markets. China's entertainment industry has become increasingly restrictive, and Beijing has recently stepped up measures against ” effeminate Male celebrities and youth culture Asked about potential political risks, Lee dismissed concerns.
“Political risk? I don't know much about that,” he said.
He said he aims to boost South Korea's cultural influence as a manufacturing powerhouse while catering to China's needs as it seeks to expand its soft power along with economic dominance.
“Culturally, does China need what we do? I think so.”
The documentary also touches on the darker aspects of K-pop close to Lee's heart, including suicide SM Entertainment artists.
He attributes the problem to anonymous and malicious online comments that often escape accountability, especially when posted on servers outside South Korea's jurisdiction, calling it a global problem that requires international cooperation. Lee advocates for global standards for user verification and mediation systems that allow victims to identify attackers without costly legal battles.
But Lee has resisted media attention on K-pop's problems. “Should we always weigh the dark side and the bright side, the future, equally?” he asked. “The media needs to think about whether K-pop is more about the future or more about the past that is holding us back. Instead of just discussing the dark side and dragging us down by clinging to the past, shouldn't we be talking more about the future?”
More than three decades later, Lee's definition remains simple: “K-pop is a new language of communication that breaks barriers. These languages move naturally—what you can't stop is culture.”
