Yesterday’s Music Core wasn’t a regular stage on the studio, but a pre-recorded special concert that was held on Thursday, September 30th, and of course it was a broadcast filled with great performances! My highlights were BoA, Se7en, 2NE1, and BEAST’s comeback. The show was hosted by Oh Sang Jin and Son DamBi. More »

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It was recently reported that Korean singer J-Lim would collaborate with 2AM’s leader Jo Kwon and release two music videos that would feature him. The first one, ‘On the Road to Breakup‘ has already been released and now the full music video for ‘Would Never Be Real‘ was unveiled today. More »

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Korean singer J-Lim is coming back with a new track called ‘Would Never Be Real‘ and has released another teaser for her upcoming music video for the new song. The music video will feature 2AM’s leader Jo Kwon and it features Jo Kwon reminiscing about his old girlfriend. He destroys his room in anger and it looks like he punches a mirror. More »

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As tradition goes, the full version of a song always follows the unveiling of its teaser. Well, we were teased earlier by a short snippet of J Lim and 2AM member Jo Kwon’s The Road to Breakup and sure enough, here comes the full version with its guns out and blazing! More »

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We were introduced earlier to the hint that 2AM’s Jo Kwon would be working with a unnamed singer for a duet. Well the name and a teaser for the song has been revealed! It’s fellow JYP Entertainment artist, J Lim! The two will be collaborating on a duet for a track titled, “The Road to Break Up.” More »

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Ningin reader Minakocat sent us a recap of her unforgettable backstage and on-stage experience with the Wonder Girls in New York City…

After a 10 hour drive to New York, I arrived the next day at the Concert Hall early in order to practice the dance and go once through rehersal. I got to meet all the other dancers! They were all soo fun to hang out with, especially since we were from all over the place! We were just practicing the dance when we heard “Yoobin check.” We all dashed to the stage to watch Wonder Girls rehearse. More »

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I’m back in NYC after following the JYP Tour from LA to OC to NYC — Coast-to-Coast, baby! I’ve finally recovered but I don’t even know where to start. So what do you do when words escape you? Make a video! That’s right, watch the JYP Tour 2009 Highlights while dancing to “Nobody”! More »

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Hey guys! FAM has brought you another video! This time we talk about our awesome time at the 2009 JYP tour in NYC. We had an awesome time at the concert which included the Wonder Girls, J-Lim and 2PM. We’ve also got an update on the fun part of the night… THE AFTER PARTY! More »

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I’m back from following the JYP Tour from Coast-to-Coast and, wow, I’ve been missing some drama on Ningin!

I’ve read all your comments. First, I understand Team Platinum Heart’s disappointment about not dancing all together on stage with Wonder Girls. I was at the LA show (actually I was at all the shows!) and I know that there was a lot of confusion backstage. I know PH didn’t get to meet 2pm and JYP, but I assure you it was not intentional. In order to make up for it, PH got to hang with WG three times backstage — including in the dressing room with WG while JYP was on stage. It was the best that could be done under the circumstances. In the end, JYP Ent had to put on a show for thousands of people and that had to take priority number one. More »

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Though the Wiltern is a historic LA landmark (one of the last-standing art deco buildings) and is the home to some of the best concerts you can catch on the West Coast, it’s a mid-sized venue that’s not really conducive to a barrage of million-member pop groups. Amazingly enough, JYP and co. still managed to do their thing on the relatively small stage. From the Wonder Girls and their sweeping dance numbers to 2PM and their bboy acrobatics, the stage withstood the lovely assault. More »

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For the most part, everyone knew the dance moves and did them well. So we were looking for something original and creative. But this is a dance contest. So the most important thing was the dancing which had to be crisp, sharp, and in the case of groups, in synced. We favored videos with less editing because it’s harder to dance straight throughout the video without stopping. Still this left quite a few videos to only select 10 best. So then we looked for creativity and something different that distinguished the videos from each other. More »

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There seems to be some confusion about whether or not 2PM is going to perform at the upcoming JYP Tour. The story is that they were not originally scheduled to perform and were only going to make an appearance. That changed within the last couple of weeks. Now, they will be performing at least one song. Same for J-Lim and G-Soul, they’ll be performing too. More »

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I started out with the intention of writing the Top 10 Moments of 2008. You just don’t know how much has happened in a year until you sit down and have to write about it. Below are 10 distinctive moments for me in 2008, but trust me, there’s so much more that happened. If your favorite 2008 moment didn’t make the list, don’t be sad. There’s always next year! More »

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Sunday’s weather for the 26th Annual Korean Harvest Fest in Flushing Meadows Park couldn’t have been better. The first day of autumn in New York, presented a true Indian summer of bright sun and warm breezes. The weather must have known to prepare for the attendees that came out in droves. Korean Americans from the tri-state area, and various other ethnicity’s local to New York came out to support local businesses that set up shop along a makeshift market in the middle of the park. More »

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Title is pretty self explanatory. 140+ Photos. Included in this gallery are lots and lots of Wonder Girls, lots of JYP, and a good amount of J-Lim, G-Soul, Min. There’s some added atmosphere shots as well. Enjoy!

Photograph credits: Lan Nguyen, Lara Visconti.

One thing of note is we’re trying out a new gallery system. Let us know what you think. Our interview and videos of the performances are coming soon. It took some time to translate and sub them and there were some issues beyond our control. Still, we got some good videos to post later!

Enjoy this in the meantime: More »

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Every year, the Korean Produce Association in Flushing, New York, puts together a big, public event to celebrate Chuseok - the Korean equivalent of Thanksgiving. This year Wondergirls are the headline act and Miss Info of Hot 97 is the host. I’ve also been told that other members of JYP’s label are expected to perform such as J-Lim and G-Soul friends of Ningin from our Rebuilding the Bridge Charity event back in July. Many others, including JYP, will be making special appearances. (Note, I haven’t been able to get hard confirmation of anything besides Wondergirls and Miss Info.)

Ningin has been granted a private, video interview with the Wondergirls which we will post sometime soon after the event! Four Ningin bloggers (yes 4!) will be covering this event, Mia, Lan, Lara, and Jessica because we’re trying to get as many interviews, photographs, and videos as we can. We’re also planning to provide hi-definition streaming of the event, but that depends on weather conditions and equipment setup of the event host. Should be a fun Sunday =)

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Lan and Alvin have already did a great job of talking about the acts and personal anecdotes for the Rebuilding the Bridge event last Saturday. I’ve been meaning to write my own summary for the past week, but I’ve had very little downtime. Plus, I’m thoroughly, every-inch-of-my-body exhausted. I don’t think I ever felt exhaustion before, but it really sucks. This isn’t a complaint, merely an explanation why I’m so slow to respond to emails, txt msgs, Facebook, and just about everything else right now. Everything was worth it and I’ll get to why after you watch this montage.

Rebuilding the Bridge was a huge success in so many ways. There were a lot of things to take away from that night. It was personally one of the best nights of my life in terms of the people I’ve met and the connections I’ve made. First, some perspective: the reception part of the event officially started at 7:30pm. People started coming in at 6:30pm. The house was full at 7pm. The line for the performance part was all the way to the end of the street about half a mile long by 7pm.

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Believe it or not, we had less then three weeks to plan Rebuilding the Bridge. Believe it or not, we had zero money - no budget - when we started. All we had at the start was an idea and five people with a burning desire to do something about the tragic, tragic earthquake in Sichuan, China. But what can five people do alone? We built a coalition and now five people became a unified community. The underlying premise was, “If Asians can’t come together for something so tragic, what will we come together for?” So this coalition of Asian non-profits, for-profits, old media, new media, political offices, and everything else became the body of a movement with compassion for a soul.

Now here we are, 13 hours away from one of the biggest, if not the biggest Asian charity event in NYC this year. In less than three weeks we secured Ryan Leslie, Planet B-Boy break dancing crews, J-Lim, Beau Sia, and Andrew Choi. We’ve had many artist and entertainers volunteer their time and services. Many of which we ultimately couldn’t fit. We’ve had an outpouring of support from Asian and non-Asian organizations and corporations alike. Without them, we would have no money, no venue, and no hope. All of those bricks were laid in less than three weeks.

I’m painting a rosy picture. Many times we were thinking it’s over; we just lost our venue, we just lost some sponsors, and we just lost our headline act (multiple times). All the issues and all the drama during this building process seems irrelevant now, staring at the event 13 hours in the future. When you think about the scale and reach of what we were doing and in the timeframe that we did it, literally a dozen small miracles had to have happened. Why put ourselves under such pressure to produce a show of this caliber in less than three weeks? This was the only timeframe we had to work with the Jabbawockeez…

So we lost our headline act about 4 days before the event; the act that we built this entire event around. As much as I want to get into why this happen, there are numerous reasons why it’s easier that I don’t. For the record, please don’t blame the Jabbawockeez members and managers for this. They really do care about what we’re trying to do and said that if they had a choice, they would be at our event in a heartbeat. They are the same guys that you’ve read about before this event, and the fame of winning America’s Best Dance Crew has not changed them one bit.

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