{"id":10451,"date":"2026-05-09T18:53:02","date_gmt":"2026-05-09T18:53:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/10451\/"},"modified":"2026-05-09T18:53:02","modified_gmt":"2026-05-09T18:53:02","slug":"k-pops-reach-how-decades-of-musical-evolution-brought-bts-to-tampa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/10451\/","title":{"rendered":"K-pop\u2019s reach: How decades of musical evolution brought BTS to Tampa"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

TEMPLE TERRACE, Fla. – K-pop superstars BTS made their long-anticipated return to music this spring, bringing their \u2018Arirang\u2019 world tour to North America with the first stop in Tampa<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The backstory:<\/p>\n

BTS, a seven-member group from South Korea, will begin the North American leg of their world tour in Tampa.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The group will perform three sold-out shows at Raymond James Stadium on April 25, April 26 and April 28.<\/p>\n

\"GettyImages-1146368849-copy.jpg\" <\/p>\n

BTS perform onstage during the 2019 Billboard Music Awards at MGM Grand Garden Arena on May 01, 2019 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Kevin Winter\/Getty Images for dcp) <\/p>\n

Timeline:<\/p>\n

This is the K-pop group\u2019s first world tour since the members began their mandatory military service from 2022 to 2025.\u00a0<\/p>\n

BTS first debuted in 2013, breaking records in the U.S. market and more.<\/p>\n

K-pop, or Korean popular music, transcends borders with fans all over the world.<\/p>\n

“K-pop is not simply a genre of music,” said Ray Seol, an associate professor of professional music at Berklee College of Music in Boston. “It’s a combination of government efforts, cultural efforts and also the music market industry in Korea is very small.”<\/p>\n

RELATED: From $100 photo cards to viral dance gigs: Inside the high-energy world of Tampa’s BTS superfans<\/a><\/p>\n

K-pop music blends Western music<\/a>, hip-hop, R & B, pop and rock to create something new, with a heavy focus on performance.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Big picture view:<\/p>\n

Its global reach became the Korean wave or hallyu, bringing K-beauty, K-pop, K-dramas and much more to the west.<\/p>\n

“It began really like early 1990s, when there was a boy band called Seo Taiji and Boys.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/p>\n

“They just brought in a more Black-oriented musical style, New Jack Swings and hip-hop,” Seol said, who is South Korean and grew up listening to K-pop\u2019s early music.<\/p>\n

K-pop gained traction in the U.S. during the 2000s. Psy\u2019s Gangnam Style, and the debuts of Blackpink and BTS came in the 2010s. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Dig deeper:<\/p>\n

Potential members of K-pop audition and go through intense training programs at agencies.\u00a0<\/p>\n

They are made into idols, or highly trained performers who sing, dance and have a signature look.<\/p>\n

Seol teaches his students about the industry in his experiential learning class on K-pop. He said idols traditionally have their own storylines to build an identity as a group.<\/p>\n

“The very well-received one was one of the boy bands called EXO from SM Entertainment. They were aliens. They’re from the different planets, and then they forgot what they kind of erased their memory, and they’re trying to find their own identity while they are on the planet Earth,” said Seol.<\/p>\n

Local perspective:<\/p>\n

K-pop is what brought Ritu Varde and Lisa Ha together to start their business in 2024 called Soundbloom K-pop, a K-pop store nestled in a shopping complex in Temple Terrace.<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\" <\/p>\n

“I think the cool thing about K-pop that a lot of people don’t realize unless you’re into the genre is that it truly is another world of music,” said Varde, a co-owner of Soundbloom K-pop.<\/p>\n

They stock shelves with albums, cassettes, plushies and other merchandise from different K-pop artists, something they couldn\u2019t originally find in Tampa.<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/p>\n

“It’s so much better, and I think the response is that artists are coming to Tampa, right? So, they’re coming to Tampa, they’re coming to just Florida in general too, like Orlando has previously had ATEEZ come, Stray Kids,” said Ha, a co-owner of Soundbloom K-pop.<\/p>\n

What’s next:<\/p>\n

Ha and Varde are confident they can match your listening style, encouraging people to check out K-pop, as it\u2019s more than one genre.\u00a0<\/p>\n

READ MORE: From \u2018lowkey\u2019 fans to 7,000-strong: Inside the K-Pop meetups transforming the Tampa Bay area<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\" <\/p>\n

It includes house music, hyper-pop, alternative, R&B, rock music and more.<\/p>\n

The Source: The information in this story came from interviews with the owners of Soundbloom K-pop and Berklee College professor Ray Seol, and it was gathered by FOX13\u2019s Briona Arradondo as part of her “K-Pop: The Seoul Reach” series.<\/p>\n

Tampa<\/a>Seen on TV<\/a>Entertainment<\/a>Temple Terrace<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TEMPLE TERRACE, Fla. – K-pop superstars BTS made their long-anticipated return to music this spring, bringing their \u2018Arirang\u2019…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10452,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2190,7974,7975,195,154,7977,7976,7978,1332],"class_list":{"0":"post-10451","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-korea","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-fl","10":"tag-hillsborough","11":"tag-k-pop","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-seen-on-tv","14":"tag-tampa","15":"tag-temple-terrace","16":"tag-us"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10451","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10451"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10451\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10452"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}