How Anderson .Paak Turned His Sons K-Pop Obsession Into a Movie — and a Crash Course in Filmmaking

During the pandemic, Grammy Award-winning musician Anderson .Paak was looking for a way to connect with his son’s two obsessions at the time: YouTube videos and K-pop. “He was like eight years old, and [I didn’t know] about either of those things,” .Paak tells The Hollywood Reporter.

So he started pulling from his own experiences — and KPops!, his directorial debut, was born. The film, in which .Paak, who is himself part Korean, stars alongside his actual son Soul Rasheed, has been five years in the making. He plays BJ, a down-on-his-luck musician who travels to Seoul to join a popular K-pop competition series, where he falls in with a ragtag group of trainees led by Rasheed’s character, Tae Young — who turns out to be BJ’s son.

“It could be something that sheds light on Black culture, Korean culture and a family comedy that everybody can go see,” says .Paak of his vision for the film, which opens today (Feb. 27) at AMC Theaters nationwide.

It’s a busy moment for .Paak. On top of the release, he’s preparing to hit the road with longtime friend and collaborator Bruno Mars, performing as DJ Pee .Wee on the singer’s latest tour. The two form the duo Silk Sonic and have won four Grammys together.

“Hopefully we can make some more music too while we’re together,” he teases of their plans for tour. “I know it’ll be a pretty busy schedule, but shoot, man, I think we can pull it off for sure.”

.Paak spoke to THR about the making of KPops!, why the story matters to him and what K-pop and Black music history have in common.

How did you get started on KPops!?

I knew that I was going to need some experience on set, so I did get a chance to direct a bunch of videos at least, so I can have a reel to present to people. When I think about the whole process, man, even just getting to the point of shooting the movie — it took years and it’s [just coming out] now. I remember how delicate we had to really be with everything, with the Korean stuff, the Black stuff, and then my son. He’s getting older and going from loving K-pop to by the time we were shooting, now he loves Slipknot. Now I’m like, “OK, let me figure it out.” He’s also going through puberty on set, so some of the stuff that we wrote for this eight-year-old doesn’t work for an 11-year-old. We only get certain amount of time with him before he has to go back to just being a kid again. Being a father on set, it was a lot of different things that I found out about myself, found out about my kid, and it was just… I got my ass kicked, but I would do it again in a heartbeat. I can’t wait to do it again.

That’s so funny to think about how kids’ interests shift over time. What has your journey been like with K-pop?

A lot of it stems from just me wanting to get the approval and wanting to be cool to my kid and my family. When he was little, my oldest son was always my A&R for new music that I had. I’d play it for him, and if he liked it then I would go with it. He was my biggest fan. Then all of a sudden, my whole house was like, “Nah, we K-pop now. We like BTS.” It was just this invasion in the house. I was like the odd man looking in.

I grew up in a Black household, Black culture. I didn’t know anything about my Korean side. My mom was adopted from Korea in the ’50s and is half Korean, but she didn’t grow up with that in the house. She had Black adoptive parents, and that’s how I was raised. But I was reintroduced to the Korean heritage through my two son’s mom and brought into that whole world.

You touched upon it earlier too, but what makes the movie, in my opinion, so enjoyable is bringing different cultures into the fold. Especially given how Black culture and Black artists have heavily influenced K-pop.

I did have a lot of unique experiences with both, and I know a lot of people do have that, but there aren’t a lot of films that showcase that. I felt like this was a great opportunity because when he was showing me these things, like with K-pop, I was like, “OK. You know about K-pop, what you know about Tupac? [You] know about BTS, what do you know about BET?” I was always trying to make sure the balance was there.

Also, as I just was looking at it from face value, it immediately made me think of groups that I came up with like New Edition, TLC, SWV and then even Motown. How they had an assembly line, and they had a whole incubation system; how they put groups together. I thought it was very similar to that. It’s very similar to Beatlemania, when The Beatles are doing Black music and blues music. But it’s somehow different when they do it. I thought these were all interesting things that could be shared in the movie, and it’s tricky to put that in without it being preachy or anything. But I thought it could be fun to have K-pop work as a sandbox for all these different things [and] these different ways to bond with my son. I think that was the fun part and that was the basis of what the movie was about for me. It’s not something that is revolving around K-pop. It’s deeper than that. It’s really a father-son movie

Was that always the plan?

The initial idea didn’t have as many layers, but after I got with my co-writer, Khaila Amazan, [it became that way]. She was really a great tool in showing me not only how to make a movie and build a script, but she was also a K-pop fanatic. I got to go through script writing 101 and K-pop music 101. I learned about the shows that they put [Idol trainees] on and have them debut on. Then there’s all the different positions that are in a group. Again, it just made me draw back to the different groups that I knew. I’m a big music nerd when it comes to Black music and just pop music. I love it. It’s very rare that there’s anything new under the sun. It’s usually things that have been done and now there’s different interpretations of it based on wherever we’re at now. I feel like Korea and K-pop is having its time and it’s been growing and growing and growing.

K-pop was big at the time, but it has gotten even bigger every year that I’ve been working on this. It’s been quite a journey just learning about the whole system and even making the original music. Once I realized we were going to put him on this fictional show that was based around shows like Produce 101, I had to go in and do a deep dive of how K-pop songs are structured, which is really fun and lots of switch up and songs that are really catered towards good choreo and everything.

You worked, and are working, with producer Dem Jointz on music for and inspired by the movie. He’s a big name producer in the world of K-pop these days. What was that like?

Working with Dem Jointz was huge. I had already been working with him for years. I met Dem Jointz through Dr. Dre — I always called Dem Jointz, Dr. Dre 2.0. He’s the guy that worked under him the most and is the most versatile, craziest talent; his mind is just going a million miles a second. He’s now one of the biggest K-pop producers, and he has molded the K-pop sound, but it’s all based around just who he is as a producer. I don’t know if there is a typical K-pop sound. It’s pulling from R&B, hip hop, EDM, whatever, but the way Dem Jointz produces, that’s how he’s always been. He’s just a guy that gets in there, and he’s a crazy mad scientist that has all these ideas. It was almost like Dr. Dre, he moved over to K-pop and took over that sound. I would say [Dr. Dre’s company] Aftermath isn’t dead, it just moved to K-pop. Through Dem Jointz, that was what I realized.

Tell me about the cameos and actors in the film that come from the world of K-pop. Kevin Woo obviously is someone who is extremely familiar with the environment and knows what being an idol is like.

I think it adds to authenticity. It was important to have real people that knew about the world in there. Shout out to Kevin, one of the first people we cast. It’s awesome that he’s even still picking up our phone calls because he is part of the biggest thing in the world right now with KPop Demon Hunters, but none of us knew anything about that. I don’t think he even knew about that. He was just always so humble and so down to rock with everything. He hadn’t been used to playing a villain. He just did so well with taking direction and providing a lot of info and insight about how things would really go. A lot of things with the language, the music, it was awesome working with him because he had the knowledge. I think that was very pivotal. It’s tough, man, when you get to casting and who you can actually cast legally with all these different things that were going on, and someone that could speak English but also speak Korean and also dance and also sing. It was very tough to find someone who could do all the things. He was big with that and a lot was riding on his performance. He just killed it. To see now how successful he is with his other projects, it’s awesome.

I do wonder if the success of KPop Demon Hunters made you more confident about the timing of this coming out. You’ve obviously been working on it for years. K-pop is in the zeitgeist right now. Are you happy this is coming out in a time like that?

Yeah. I believe in fate, and I believe everything’s perfect timing. Leading up to this I was like, “Damn, did we miss the boat? Is it taking too long for people even care anymore?” I think it’s perfect, and it’s right on time. I think it’s great that K-pop music, K-pop cinema, everything is blowing up and people are having to discuss certain things. And now there are questions being asked and conversations being had.

I think this is a great addition to the conversation. This is a unique story that is needed, and K-pop fans are going to be surprised going to this movie thinking that it’s all about K-pop. I think they’re going to enjoy it, but they’re also going to be surprised at the fact that it’s about more than just K-pop music or about the cameos or anything like that. I really hope, in the end, people are exposed to some new things that they didn’t know before and it opens up their palette a bit.

This movie feels very authentic to the world it’s in. I know some fans can be very precious and might feel like people are coming to cash in on what they see as a popular thing. There’s a line in the movie where someone says to you “Just another person coming to capitalize off of K-pop” or something to that effect. It feels like K-pop has become ingrained in your life after working on this.

I have fun collabing. I have fun pulling from the well of different things that I’m into and collabing with different people and creating something new. This is another way. It’s K-pop but, more importantly, this is more about me wanting to make something new and make something that I felt was needed at the time. I have been wanting to get into film space. A lot of the offers I get are pretty much glorified cameos or something to do with trauma. Something that’s just like, I don’t know, it’s not fun. I wanted to do something fun, inspiring and joyful, and this is what I felt like was something that I could really pull off and wanted to do as my first film.

I understand people being precious with the genre of K-pop. For a long time, it was something that was considered niche and was kept in a bubble, and now that’s blown up. But again, these feelings aren’t new. If you feel some type of way, then imagine how Black people felt when people like Elvis or The Stones were coming out and doing Black music that they’ve been doing for years, and now they’re seeing it blow up. These are all feelings that have happened before and all different things that have taken place within music history. This is just a more recent version of it. I’m glad I can be telling a unique story about it, while not doing something divisive and more so trying to bring people together. That’s how my son was even born into the world — because of his parents’ love of music and coming together from two different worlds. Now he’s doing his own music. He’s going to have his own story to tell. I’m glad that we could make something that is part of that.

I think a lot of people shy away from talking about what you’re saying, but there’s a lot more in common in music genres than people might want to admit.

Yeah, and there shouldn’t be anything wrong with going back and studying how these things came about, and then embracing that, taking care of that and acknowledging it. Then moving on [and] making something innovative from there, because that’s how it’ll take care of you. When you go and study and follow and you learn it, that shows that you have a love for the craft, and you’re going to help preserve it and protect it. You’re going to uphold it. If you don’t, then you’re just taking, and at the end [of the day], it’s going to take from you. It’s not going to protect you in the end. I just feel like that’s how things work. It shouldn’t be something that angers anybody or something that people have to defend. Actually, if you just go back and learn, you’ll see where people were pulling from and all these different things. How they were inspired and how we got to this point. So, yeah, I think that’s important, man.