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K-pop collaborations with global artists or other Korean singers add distinctive tracks to pop culture, reflecting the growing worldwide appreciation for Korean music. These alliances often blend various genres, languages, and even age groups, creating truly unique music. Such collaborations also reach a broader audience, gaining popularity across diverse regions.
These tracks, indeed, entertain the fans but the process of making those tracks, lyrics ideation, and prior thoughts before collaboration make them more memorable. All these collaborations are listed based on Spotify views.
Note: The article reflects the author's opinion and is listed in chronological order.
Some great K-pop collaborations like Jason Durelo x NCT 127, Cardi B x BLACKPINK, and others
Such K-pop collaborations are -
Trending
- BTS x Coldplay (1 billion))
- BTS' Jimin x Ha Sung-woon (290m)
- Cardi B x BLACKPINK (198m)
- TXT x Jonas Brother (115m)
- LAY x NCT 127 x Jason Derulo ( 46m)
1) BTS x Coldplay
In 2021, BTS collaborated with Coldplay for My Universe, which can be counted as one of the best K-pop collaborations. With 1 billion plays on Spotify, the track was featured on Billboard Hot 100, which was Coldplay's debut solo track to enter Billboard in 14 years.
On May 31, 2022, the members of Coldplay had an interview with Billboard, and the vocalist Chris Martin remembered the prior thoughts before this K-pop collaboration.
"At first I was like, ‘there’s no way that’s ever going to work, ever. How could that possibly be? We’re like four retired janitors and they’re like Korea’s handsomest people," he said.
He continued,
"As soon as I started singing it it felt good and I was like, ‘This has to be for us and BTS because it’s about forbidden love… then the rest carried on as it did. I felt like it was really cool from the beginning."
The track is themed on banning music and forbidden love. The bi-lingual lyrics of the track exhibit an alignment between Korean and Western vocalists.
2) BTS' Jimin x Ha Sung-woon
HOTSHOT's singer Ha Sung-woon teamed up with BTS' JImin for the OST, With You, for the drama Our Blues in 2022. As one of the best K-pop collaborations, the track has garnered 290 million streams on Spotify.
Ha Sung-woon was the first friend of Jimin apart from other BTS members and these two best friends always wanted to collaborate. However, Jimin was skeptical about K-drama OST.
In an X post, Ha Sung Woon explained,
"He seemed to be not interested in doing OSTs YET, but then asked 'but am I doing it with you hyung (elder brother)?' and I said no. Then he said, 'I want to try it if I do it with you hyung!' So I told the production team about it."
However, Jimin put extra effort into preparing the track and he stepped out of his comfort zone to make it perfect. And, With You reflects the mature and raw version of Promise Singer.
On June 18, 2022, in a Weverse interview with Myungseok Kang, he talked about the process of making this K-pop collaboration.
"I managed to come out of my shell a little thanks to that song. The first version of ‘With You’ we recorded was very emotional and there was a long process involved in relieving that emotion," he said.
The track was unusual for Jimin as he needed to show his emotional side and being an introvert, it was difficult for him. He further explained,
"It gave me a lot of practice because it was really hard right from the beginning, so I had to redo it over and over."
3) Cardi B x BLACKPINK
BLACKPINK has done numerous K-pop collaborations with global singers but the synergy with Cardi B is one of the best. The track, Bet You Wanna was released in 2020, and currently, it has 198 million plays on Spotify.
This song is from the album The Album which documents different personalities through different K-pop collaborations. In this Western K-pop collaboration, Cardi B contributed her powerful raps which perfectly synchronized with BLACKPINK's melodious voice.
In an interview with APNews in 2020, Jennie opened up about this K-pop collaboration with Cardi B by saying,
"It was our first time having a rapper feature for our song. As soon as we heard the verse we were like, ‘Ah! Cardi B!!!"
Rose said,
"We were screaming. We were literally screaming."
4) TXT x Jonas Brother
Another best K-pop collaboration between TXT and the Jonas Brothers left the fans in awe. On July 17, 2023, these boy bands released their first collaborative track Do It Like That, and named it the ultimate summer anthem. Currently, it has 115 million views on Spotify.
The track was one of the special collaborations between these two boy bands and One Republic's Ryan Tedder produced it. In 2023, TXT was involved in an interview with Billboard, where they discussed the similarities and differences between these boy bands.
Taehyun explained,
"I’d say TOMORROW X TOGETHER and Jonas Brothers are both artists who have a jam-packed discography with quality music. We, TOMORROW X TOGETHER, are not related by blood like Jonas Brothers, but the five of us are a band of brothers too and a family nonetheless."
5) LAY x NCT 127 x Jason Derulo
The collaboration among Lay Zhang, Jason Durelo, and NCT 127 is another best alliances in the global music industry. To pay tribute to the 10th death anniversary of Michael Jackson, Jason Durelo scheduled four tracks in ten months in 2019, and Let's Shut Up and Dance is one of them. It has recorded 46 million plays on Spotify.
Mimicking the legend's style was different from NCT 127's music and teaming up with Jason was unusual. As legendary Micheal Jackson promoted diversity through his art, the track tried to highlight the same.
In an interview with ET Now in 2019, Durelo said,
"It’s not a tribute where we’re trying to be Mike or dressing like him, but you can feel the influence."
He continued further,
"It’s not saying ‘I can be Mike,’ it’s saying look at three different artists and all of these different dancers from across the world that were inspired by the greatest dancer of all time.”
Along with fifty street dancers, this Western and K-pop collaboration calls for ladies from different countries. In that same interview, he explained that the purpose of the track was to make people forget the misery and dance anyway.
In 2021, Alesso, CORSAK, and Stray Kids surprised fans with their collaboration on Going Dumb. Similarly, the unexpected team-up between Ateez and Pentatonix caught fans off guard.
