Category: K-Wave

Singer Hwasa is the first K-pop female soloist to headline the main stage of Brazil's biggest music festival. On the 11th, local time, she takes Palco Mundo — Rock in Rio's flagship stage — at Olympic Park in Rio de Janeiro.

Rock in Rio started in Brazil in 1985 and has since grown into a global franchise with editions in Lisbon, Madrid, and Las Vegas. Legends like Beyoncé, Queen, Guns N' Roses, and Bon Jovi have all played this stage.

This year's Palco Mundo lineup includes Elton John, Maroon 5, and Stray Kids, with Hwasa joining the bill. Her set will feature hits like 'Twit' and 'Maria,' plus the single she dropped last October — a track that racked up 750 Perfect All-Kills on Korea's combined music charts, the best showing of any Korean artist's song.

Born in 1995, Hwasa debuted in 2014 as a member of Mamamoo and has built a solo career alongside her group work ever since. This appearance looks set to expand her footprint as a solo artist well beyond Korea.

The news first surfaced three days ago, on September 10, when BTS's agency posted a notice on its fan community channel. The announcement named the screening program and specified exactly which shows would make it to theaters.

Two shows made the cut: Buenos Aires's third concert and São Paulo's second. How they're screened depends on where you are — regions with a smaller time gap get the broadcast in real time, matched to local schedules, while places with a bigger time difference, like Korea and the rest of Asia and Australia, will see it days later.

In Korea, you can catch it at CGV, Lotte Cinema, or Megabox. Tickets go on sale in stages starting September 17 — domestic sales open that morning, with international sales following at 10 p.m. the same day.

These two screenings are just a slice of a much bigger run: BTS is spending all of October on the road across South America, with stops in Santiago, Lima, and Bogotá before wrapping up in Argentina and Brazil. Buenos Aires gets shows on October 21, 23, and 24; São Paulo follows with October 28, 30, and 31.

The South America leg is part of BTS's 'Arirang' world tour — their first tour as a full seven-member group in roughly four years, since 2022. The tour kicked off in April at Goyang Stadium and has already swept through Japan, North America, and Europe.

Kim Garam's new profile shoot, marking her acting debut, leans into restrained expressions and a range of moods. Management GU, which produced the shoot, said it wanted to showcase her versatility and growth potential, adding that it plans to back her upcoming acting work.

Her time in the public eye traces back to her girl-group debut. Not long after the group made its name, allegations of violence from her middle school years surfaced, and her activities were suspended before her contract with her original agency was terminated shortly after. Accounts from the alleged parties and from Kim Garam's side diverged at the time; she later posted a statement acknowledging her own immaturity in handling the situation.

Even during her time away from the spotlight, she didn't abandon a path back. She began studying on-camera acting at university starting in 2024, and this past March started posting practice videos on her own YouTube channel, reconnecting with the public on her own terms. That visibility reportedly caught her new agency's attention, leading to a formal contract signed this past June.

The agency cited her consistency and drive to grow as the reasons behind the signing, noting that alongside acting training, she has also been studying English and Japanese and working on physical conditioning. No specific project has been finalized yet, with her team saying she's currently weighing options for her next move.

Billboard puts out its "Global Song of the Summer" recap every year, tallying up the season's music consumption — and this year's edition is built on streaming and sales data gathered by Luminate from more than 200 markets worldwide. BTS's "Swim" landed at No. 2 on the version that excludes the U.S. and No. 6 on the chart that folds America back in.

That result comes down to staying power. "Swim" held onto the upper reaches of the chart all summer long, topping the Global Excl. U.S. ranking eight separate times and hitting No. 1 on the combined Global 200 on four occasions. Rather than a brief spike, the song logged nearly four straight months near the top.

The album that carries "Swim," BTS's fifth studio record "Arirang," is still going strong too. When it dropped in March, it became the first BTS album since 2020's "BE" to debut atop both the Billboard 200 and the flagship singles chart in the same week. It then held the No. 1 album spot for three straight weeks, and nearly six months later it's still charting — up two spots to No. 29 on the latest list.

Billboard pointed to a major summer stage moment as part of the story. In mid-July, BTS headlined the halftime show at the FIFA World Cup final at a stadium in New Jersey alongside Shakira, Justin Bieber and Madonna — the first time a World Cup final has ever featured a halftime show at all.

The same recap also spotlighted BLACKPINK's Jennie, whose collaboration with Tame Impala cracked the upper rankings. Back in 2023, BTS's Jungkook became the first K-pop act to top this year-end list with his track alongside rapper Latto, and this year's showing suggests K-pop's summer dominance on the chart has become a multi-year pattern.

'Deuljwi' — adapted from the webtoon of the same name — draws on an old Korean folktale about a rat that eats a person's fingernail clippings and transforms into that person. Building on creator Ludovico's original story, the series follows a reclusive novelist whose entire identity has been stolen by an unidentified being, a loan shark desperate to recover his lost money, and a detective chasing leads — three people with different agendas whose paths collide.

The series is directed by a filmmaker known for genre work, and marks the first time Ryu Jun-yeol has played two characters in the same project across his entire filmography. Sul Kyung-gu and Lee Kyu-hyung round out the cast as characters with their own hidden pasts, and critics say their performances help ratchet up the tension.

The show opened at No. 5, but word of mouth pushed it to the top spot within just a week. By Netflix's viewership-hours metric, it posted the highest numbers of any non-English title on the platform, and it simultaneously broke into the top 10 in multiple regions, including Korea — a sign the story is resonating well beyond its home market.

International outlets have also taken note of how the show handles its unusual premise, with reviews across several countries praising its deliberately tense cinematography and pacing. Viewers have responded to the way each episode reveals a new piece of the puzzle, along with the show's distinctive score.

Tilly Norwood first made waves on social media last year before being formally introduced at a European film festival. Once it became clear she wasn't human — but a creation of generative AI — the union representing American actors and broadcasters issued a statement warning she threatens actors' jobs and artistry, and several well-known actors piled on with their own concerns.

That backdrop makes this video chat — Norwood's first interview with the press since her debut — a notable moment. On screen, she chatted naturally, even describing her own outfit to the reporter on the other side of the camera, and described her personality as sharp but warm, with a very British sense of humor. She joked about a mischievous streak, asking that it be kept just between her and the interviewer — not her developer.

Still, she didn't come across as fully human. When her own producer popped into frame, she didn't recognize him right away, and when asked to improvise a specific emotion on the spot, she couldn't quite pull it off. Getting Norwood to "act" requires feeding her detailed scripted prompts and running multiple revisions beforehand — a process skipped entirely for improv, where the cracks showed. CNN described the exchange as feeling like a video call with an AI avatar.

The studio behind Norwood has repeatedly stressed she isn't meant to replace human actors. Instead, they've pitched the tech as a way to cut costs on dangerous stunts and set builds, or to handle nudity and de-aging effects — always with the human actor's consent, they say. Norwood is set to make her screen debut soon as the lead in a feature-length comedy, which would mark the first time an AI actress has headlined a film.

BTS wrapped its stadium tour across 12 cities in the US and Canada with a clean sweep: every single show sold out. The tour kicked off in Tampa, Florida, back in July and ran for 31 dates total, drawing roughly 1.92 million fans across North America. The closing run landed at SoFi Stadium in California, where BTS played four nights in the first week of September.

Those four LA shows alone pulled in about 282,000 fans. Add in a four-show run BTS played at the same venue back in 2021, and the group has now performed at SoFi Stadium eight times total — more than any other act in the stadium's history. The combined attendance across those eight shows, about 496,000 fans, is also a venue record. The LA finale streamed live worldwide to fans in 177 countries and regions through the group's fan platform, Weverse.

The shows delivered plenty of emotional moments, too. During "Body to Body," a track off the group's fifth studio album, "Arirang," the melody of the traditional Korean folk song that gives the album its name rang out through the stadium as fans waved Korean flags in the crowd. The tour's opening night, September 1, fell on member Jungkook's birthday, and the closing show on September 6 featured a birthday sing-along for RM, whose actual birthday came just days later.

The welcome extended well beyond the venue. The city of Los Angeles declared September 1 through 8 a commemorative week and lit City Hall in red, the signature color of the new album. Toronto and the state of Illinois, both stops on the tour in late August, issued their own proclamations, and El Paso County, Texas, presented BTS with a certificate of appreciation. Maryland's governor posted a welcome video, and Mexico's president extended a formal invitation for the group to visit. Roughly 40 outlets — from the Los Angeles Times and Forbes to the Associated Press and Billboard — covered the tour, underscoring the group's cultural reach in the US.

Next up for BTS: South America. The new leg opens October 2 in Bogotá, Colombia, and continues through Peru, Chile and Argentina before wrapping in São Paulo, Brazil. The stops in Colombia, Peru and Argentina will mark the first time all seven members have performed together in those countries.

Haerin is finally back in front of cameras. She's headed to a pop-up photo call thrown by the luxury beauty brand she's repped as ambassador, set inside a department store in Jamsil. Also on the guest list, reportedly: former figure skating star Yuna Kim, plus a handful of actors and models.

What makes this appearance a big deal is timing — it's Haerin's first public event since NewJeans' blowup with its agency. The group had spent months operating independently amid a dispute over their former CEO's status, but a court sided with the label, effectively ending the standoff. Since then, members have trickled back one by one, and this photo call is the first official booking to come out of that reconciliation.

Not everyone's on the same path, though. One member was cut loose over contract-related fallout, and ADOR is now suing that member, her family, and the group's former CEO for damages running into the hundreds of millions of won. Another member has yet to fully return and is reportedly still hashing things out with the agency.

Still, fans are holding out hope the four remaining members could reunite. A video showing all four together surfaced around the group's debut anniversary, keeping speculation alive about whether a full comeback is next. Whether Haerin's solo red-carpet moment turns into a group-wide return is the thing to watch now.

IU is coming back with new music. Her agency, EDAM Entertainment, posted a short teaser clip to its official social channels in the early hours of September 4 — no advance notice, no press release, just a sudden drop that sent fans scrambling to decode it within minutes.

The clip is styled like an old computer boot-up screen: a crescent moon, an orbiting ring, and a softly glowing orb icon, with a release date stamped in the corner. That's how fans confirmed the next single lands at 6 p.m. on September 10, rolling out simultaneously across streaming platforms.

What really caught people's attention, though, was the music underneath. It's the same melody that briefly played in a video IU posted August 26 to her YouTube channel, "이지금" (Ijigeum) — a wordplay on her real name, Lee Ji-eun. At the time, fans on Korean forums debated whether that snippet was a deliberate hint at new music. The teaser all but confirms they were right.

The timing stands out, too: this release lands exactly twelve months after last year's equally unannounced digital single. Same surprise-drop playbook, same week of September — it's starting to look like IU's signature move.

This summer, IU said a worsening inner-ear condition — in which the ear canal doesn't close properly — forced her to scrap a planned solo concert in Goyang. Her sixth full-length album, which had been timed to that tour, was pushed back as a result. It's not yet confirmed whether this new single is a preview track off that delayed album; song title, genre and other details are expected to roll out in the coming days.

A premium, Korean-inspired chicken brand has set up shop inside the US Open tennis tournament grounds in New York, catching plenty of attention. Located at Arthur Ashe Stadium, the brand serves six pieces of chicken nuggets topped with caviar for $100 — roughly ₩130,000 in Korean currency.

The brand is a fine-dining chicken concept from a chef who also runs an upscale Korean restaurant in New York. Since opening in early 2024, it's drawn attention for its unconventional pairing of caviar and champagne with chicken nuggets. The restaurant's striking interior has also turned heads since it first opened.

Nicknamed the 'golden chicken box,' the dish was a hit at last year's tournament too, with celebrities lining up for photos at the stand. The chef behind the brand told one outlet at the time that crowds got so large that on-site security actually asked the team to tone down the promotion.

This year, in addition to the existing stadium location, the brand opened a dedicated booth in the tournament's food village. There, it's serving two chicken sandwiches found nowhere else at the event — including a spicy version — alongside sides like fries and mac and cheese. Local outlets reported that while some fans praised the taste, others balked at the price.

The brand isn't alone in turning heads at this year's food court — several noted chefs have rolled out unusual offerings, from spicy chicken sandwiches to wagyu skewers and Mexican tacos.