K-pop meets I-pop, stars take music beyond borders

(Our Bureau, May 22) Two unrelated music releases saw a cross-Asian collaboration of artists from South Korea, Middle East and India. While Korean-American soloist Alexa and Kuwaiti-Saudi Bader AlShuaibi collaborated on the solo “Is It On”, Indian singer-actor Armaan Malik, Indian-American DJ Kshmr and Korean-American singer Eric Nam dropped “Echo” on Friday. The release aligns with the Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month celebrations in May. Both the songs were released on the same day with the hope of tapping the fan base of the other artists across the continent. Alexa and Bader AlShuaibi’s “Is It On” is a trilingual track in English, Arabic and Korean. “Echo”, which has been in the make for about a year, was first proposed at Kshmr’s Los Angeles vault. It is first-of-it-kind collaboration in K-pop, I-pop and EDM genres.