When the pandemic hit, and reality settled in that life would be isolated and mostly inside, Grammy winner Anderson .Paak found himself on the outside looking in, in a way he didn\u2019t anticipate. \u201cI was the odd man out. My son was 8, and BTS took over the whole house,\u201d .Paak explained in an interview with The Times at his WeHo lounge, Andy\u2019s. \u201cIt was a K-pop storm. Before that, me and my son were bonding off of my music.\u201d<\/p>\n
.Paak\u2019s son, Soul Rasheed, and his now ex-wife originally from Korea, Jaylyn Chang, had become obsessed with K-pop alongside much of America, which reminded .Paak of the intensity of Beatlemania. Black American music influenced the birth of a new style, which formed and expanded across oceans, then returned to the U.S. and exploded. This effect in the .Paak household was palpable, causing Soul and Chang to deeply bond in a new way. .Paak himself, as a soul, R&B and hip-hop aficionado, was tapped into the source, but not the reinterpreted subject. So he had to find a way in.<\/p>\n
Soul, at the time, like many 8-year-olds, had also become obsessed with becoming a YouTuber. Besides .Paak\u2019s music, the father-and-son duo had also previously connected over humor, so .Paak started there. They began with funny skits and eventually fused them with BTS dances. Soon, there were even videos featuring them comedically educating each other about their individual music tastes. \u201cI loved it,\u201d .Paak recalled, getting lost in the memory. \u201cI was getting to know him more, and he was getting to know me. My mom would always say, \u2018It\u2019s one thing for your kids to love you, but it\u2019s another to share things you\u2019re interested in.\u2019 It wasn\u2019t like I was being Anderson .Paak, I was just Dad.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI was getting to know him more, and he was getting to know me,\u201d .Paak said of bonding with his son, Soul.<\/p>\n
(Carlin Stiehl \/ For The Times)<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/figure><\/div>\n
Through this exploration and the realization of a potential continued familial bond, a story idea emerged, then a treatment for a K-pop-centered film that .Paak would direct and he and Soul would both star in. .Paak then began directing a slew of music videos as the pandemic began to fade, building a portfolio and gaining experience in the medium. But he could start to sense Soul\u2019s interest fading as time passed. After a few failed pitch attempts, .Paak urgently enlisted the help of one of his oldest friends and fellow entertainer, Jonnie \u201cDumbfoundead\u201d Park, who brought .Paak and the idea to Stampede Ventures. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe pitch was from an idea that Anderson had, and [to introduce it], we showed them this TikTok that he had with his son,\u201d Park recalled over Zoom. \u201cAnderson was like, \u2018Do you know anything about BET, son?\u2019 And [Soul] was like, \u2018No, but I know BTS.\u2019 Then they were just going back and forth, arguing about BET and BTS. That was literally the deck, [us saying] we would take that energy and put it into a two-hour film. They loved it. As soon as we walked out of the office, Anderson looked over like, \u2018Are we greenlit?!\u2019 They just understood it, the whole intergenerational, intercultural element of Black and Korean.\u201d Stampede combined forces on the project with Live Nation Studios and .Paak\u2019s debut feature \u201cK-Pops!\u201d was off to the races.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s important to note that .Paak is himself Black and Korean. His mother was adopted from Korea by a SoCal Black American military family and .Paak\u2019s father was also a Black military officer. Thus, while his mother was born in Korea, he was raised almost entirely within a Black cultural space. .Paak didn\u2019t experience much direct exposure to Korean culture until his 20s, when he met Chang at the Musicians Institute in Hollywood. As an immigrant directly from Korea, Chang showed him the fortitude of structure amid her community. He was also taken by their inherent family value system. \u201cIn Korean households, you stay in the house until you get older so you can take care of your parents, and your parents can help take care of the kids,\u201d .Paak explained. \u201cThere\u2019s an infrastructure that\u2019s worked out. Also, Korean food is important, as is learning the language. I was drawn to that. My son didn\u2019t eat anything outside of Korean food for so long, and he\u2019s just now getting into tacos.\u201d<\/p>\n
.Paak then further explored his Korean side through a burgeoning friendship with Park, which happened a bit later, after Chang had already given birth to Soul. Park introduced .Paak to K-town-based Korean culture through their shared music scene. \u201cThe people that came from K-town had a lot of Latino and Black influences as well,\u201d .Paak remembered. \u201cThere was a little more of a melting pot, and it was more urban. But in a similarly communal way [to Koreans from Korea], they were all hanging out in K-town with other Korean friends. They\u2019d drink soju, and go to after-hours where you had to have somebody Korean with you.\u201d<\/p>\n
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