Sure, you may love the epic international musical collabs involving your fave K-pop idols, but there’s a few out there you may not know about!
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From the era-defining BTS and Halsey collaboration on Boy with Luv to the summer anthem Ice Cream by BLACKPINK and Selena Gomez, global collaborations are definitely not few and far between. Artists all around the world love to collab, y’all! And each collab can very well be a showcase of some real talent—talent that reaches the far corners of the globe.
No matter how well-versed you are as a K-pop stan in global collabs, no matter how many tracks have made it to your Top Songs, there may be some more collaborations out there that deserve more attention and love. Learn your K-pop history! From remixes to stages, remote features to full-on collaborations, these unexpected collabs may just make it to your faves list, too.
GDRAGON X MISSY ELLIOT
Talk about unexpected! A stage of rap superstars. BIGBANG member and Hallyu icon G-DRAGON and Missy Elliot shared a stage on South Korean music show MCountdown back in 2013. They performed G-DRAGON’s Niliria in a history-making collab.
BTS X CHARLI XCX
Long before Brat summer, Charli XCX collaborated with BTS on Dream Glow, a track off the K-pop supergroup’s official soundtrack for their mobile game BTS World. The entire soundtrack included more epic collabs, like A Brand New Day with Zara Larsson and All Night with Juice WRLD.
WENDY X JOHN LEGEND
Let this duet by John Legend and Red Velvet’s Wendy put you into a romantic mood. Part of SM Entertainment’s STATION X 0 music project, the global collaboration was unexpected and totally works. Underrated classic.
RED VELVET X ELLIE GOULDING
English singer-songwriter Ellie Goulding released a few versions and remixes of her song Close To Me—including one where Red Velvet put their own spin on it! Members Wendy and Yeri are even credited as composers and lyricists!
HWASA X DUA LIPA
Baddies on baddies. After sharing the stage at the 2019 MNET Asian Music Awards, Dua Lipa and Hwasa maximized their joint slay by collaborating on a version of Dua Lipa’s Physical!
SNOOP DOGG X MONSTA X
Don’t knock it ’til you listen to it. The Snoop Dog x MONSTA X collaboration for none other than The Spongebob Movie: Sponge on the Run (2020) is an unironically fun, chase scene-worthy techno dance track. Truly the collab we didn’t know we needed, but we did.
LOONA X GRIMES
Two names we never thought would be put in the same sentence, much less the same song. LOONA sub-unit LOONA yyxy tapped musician Grimes for a collaboration on their track love4eva back in 2018.
RM X FALL OUT BOY
Emos-turned-K-pop-stans rise!
PENTATONIX X ATEEZ
ATEEZ’s San, Yunho, and Jongho joined Pentatonix for a version of the American a cappella group’s A Little Space back in 2021. Pentatonix’s first collab with a Korean group, A Little Space is a fun, catchy collaboration between some great musicians vocalists.
LAY X NCT 127 X JASON DERULO
LAY, NCT 127, and Jason Derulo prove three isn’t a crowd in this grand collab of all-rounders. The singers, dancers, and rappers showed up and showed out with their entire skillsets in Jason Derulo’s track Let’s Shut Up & Dance.
PINK SWEATS X SEVENTEEN’S DK & JOSHUA
In a track that wants to make us fall in love, singer-songwriter Pink Sweat$ enlisted the vocals of SEVENTEEN vocalists DK and Joshua in crooning about a love so beautifully deep.
Continue Reading: 2024 Might Just Be The Year Of Unexpected Collaborations
