K-pop is not new to the global music scene, with BTS, BLACKPINK and songs from the Netflix movie “KPop Demon Hunters” (2025) finding themselves at the top of the charts as new K-pop groups debut every month.

In the Trojan community, Band Kori strives to deliver K-pop on campus, with the goal of spreading recognition of not only well-known K-pop songs but also rock and R&B genres within the world of Korean music.

Chaeyeon Park, a freshman majoring in international relations and a bassist in the group, said the group’s motivations distinguish Band Kori from other bands on campus. 

“We focus on a specific language. It’s mostly sung in Korean. Also, it’s outside of Thornton,” Park said. “That’s a big part that distinguishes it, because it’s all from our want to be better and make music.”

Christopher Kim, a vocalist and bassist for the band and a junior majoring in quantitative biology, said their focus on Korean music is their core strength as a band at USC. 

“During these times [when] I feel like Korea is being put on the map, I feel it’s good that we’re able to bring these new sounds in a time where Korea [is seen],” Christopher Kim said.

Band Kori doesn’t just cover famous boy and girl group songs well known to global audiences; they cover artists that even Koreans may not be familiar with. Heesoo Kim, the co-president and a vocalist of the band as well as a junior majoring in human biology, said that Band Kori has recently begun covering indie music extensively.

“The artists that we play are not conventional groups that people think of,” Heesoo Kim said. “A lot of the indie bands that I mentioned are bands that even I hadn’t really heard of or listened to until I joined Band Kori. I think that [in this] aspect we are introducing smaller artists.”

According to Park, though the band mostly plays music that is entirely in Korean, they also play some English songs, like “Echo! (talk to me baby)” by The Poles, so there is something for everyone at their sets. 

“It is somewhat hard to explain what I do to people [who] are not Korean because they don’t know the artist. … Especially if you don’t listen to K-pop, it’s hard to explain what we do,” Park said. “But I think people here at USC are so multicultural. They’re open to listening [to] a lot of music from different countries.”

Christopher Kim said that the band brings their music to a wider audience every semester by playing a show that they call “Koricon,” where they perform at USC Village for a few hours. 

Heesoo Kim said the band has performed at USC Songfest in the past, a competition where USC bands perform for a panel of judges and in front of a live audience. She said that her first performance with the band at Songfest was especially memorable for her because she was able to overcome her nerves.

“I remember coming down [from the stage] and everyone was like, ‘You look like you got possessed. That was your best performance ever,’” Heesoo Kim said. “I usually get really shy about stage performance and hyping up the crowd and stuff on stage, but I was just running around the stage, belting. It was crazy.”

However, Heesoo Kim said that organizing a band while being a junior at USC comes with challenges, because it can be difficult to balance school and band practice. 

“There will be a lot of times where there’s a gig at the end of the week, but I have a midterm the next day, and the only practice day that works with all the members is the night right before my midterm,” Heesoo Kim said. “But eventually, at the end of the day, I always care too much about Band Kori to just turn a blind eye and not care about the outcome. And so, I always end up wanting us to be better and better.”

Park said that it is the passion of the members that gets the band functioning at such a professional level, and that she feels she has found a community in the group.

“A lot of the people there, I see them as my brothers and sisters. Hopefully they see me as a younger sister too, because I was 막내, or maknae, for last semester,” Park said, using the Korean term for the youngest member of the group. “I just think that it’s a very good opportunity for me to grow both as a musician and as a person.” 

Heesoo Kim said that the next big step for Band Kori is to collaborate with other Asian bands not only at USC but also at neighboring universities.

“I’ve heard that there’s a band at UCLA that does K-pop music, or like a Korean band, and my next big goal would be to form a collaboration with them, or with creSCendo, which is a Chinese performing arts group.”