German teen singer Jamie-Lee Kriewitz tells the Bild newspaper that her dream is to be a K-pop star.
Jamie-Lee Kriewitz is a rising teen star in her native Germany, born in 1998 in Bennigsen in the northwestern state of Lower Saxony.
This year, representing Germany at the 2016 Eurovision Song Contest, she’ll be performing in Stockholm on May 14.
Kriewitz began her career as a gospel singer at the age of 12. In 2015, she won the Voice of Germany contest, a gateway to pop star fame. In an interview she gave following her victory, she told reporters that she was a big K-pop fan and that she planned on majoring in Korean studies at college. She said her dream was to be a K-pop star, and to head over to Korea as soon as she could. Her favorite K-pop group, she said, was Block B.
Young Jamie-Lee Kriewitz, with a powerful voice, is representing Germany at the 2016 Eurovision Song Contest this coming May.
Germany doesn’t have as big a K-pop fan base as the U.K., France or countries in Eastern Europe, but there are still some diehard fans. Many became exposed to Korea through pop music and dramas, an interest that segues into Korean studies. Of the K-pop groups out there, boy bands are the most popular. According to the Die Welt newspaper, this is thanks to their “beautiful looks, catchy songs and impressive choreography and dance.”
Jamie-Lee Kriewitz posts photos on her personal Instagram profile.
Only a generation back, in the 1980s, it was Korean youth that was obsessing over Germany’s new wave pop. Songs like Nena’s “99 Luftballons” or Nicole Flieg’s “Ein bisschen Frieden” were played over and over again. No one could have imagined that three decades later, German youth would be listening to Korean pop songs with the same fondness.
By Wi Tack-whan, Lee Hana
Korea.net Staff Writers
whan23@korea.kr
