K/DA

American singers Madison Beer (left) and Jaira Burns (right) voice the characters Evelynn and Kai'Sa respectively.

Miyeon (left) and Soyeon (right), of South Korean girl group (G)I-dle, voice Ahri and Akali respectively.

K/DA was unveiled in the 2018 League of Legends World Championship Opening Ceremony in Incheon on November 3, 2018, with the release of their debut single, "Pop/Stars".[1] It is a bilingual song with both K-pop and American pop influences, with vocals in English by Beer and Burns, and in both English and Korean by Soyeon and Miyeon.[2] During the ceremony, Beer, Burns, Miyeon and Soyeon performed "Pop/Stars" on-stage, whilst augmented reality versions of the characters they voice sang and danced alongside them.[1] The augmented reality versions of the characters could perform acts a human could not achieve, such as Ahri flying onto the stage, whilst a human singer has "a certain raw human element" that can't yet be captured by a virtual performer.[3]

Tantula wrote that "we went into this really wanting to make [the ceremony] a dope ‘League’ moment for players – albeit one where the fantasy of the champs being in the real world played out in an authentic manner that could live alongside others in their verticals (ie song had to be able to stand up to other pop songs, performance had to stand up to other performances, etc)."[4] The official music video for the song was released on YouTube on the same day.[1]

According to Sebastien Najand, who composed "Pop/Stars", an all-English demo was trialled at first, followed by a version with significantly more Korean.[3] Ultimately, Najand said that "we wanted to make it a blend of western pop and K-Pop".[3] Patrick Morales, the creative lead behind the "Pop/Stars" music video, said that he wanted K/DA to exist "somewhere between fantasy and reality".[5] The team was initially uncertain of the type of music that would be most suitable for the group, due to amount of variety within the pop music genre. They eventually decided against a cuter, more-idol group based theme in favour of something "modern and edgy" that combines a "bit of street style with a handcrafted feel."[5]

The name "K/DA" is an in-game term in League of Legends that refers to a player's kills, deaths, and assists.[2] The creation of K/DA was based in part on the desire of Riot Games, League's developers to "see their company more as a full-fledged music label in the future".[10] Toa Dunn, head of Riot's music division, claimed in an interview with Variety that "[K/DA] was the most involved music project we’ve ever done".[11]

According to Tantula, "We believe there’s a huge overlap between League of Legends, esports overall and the music industry", and as a result, they invested "in building [their] internal music team with both an artist focused creative studio full of composers, songwriters and producers, as well as people who can perform all the services that you would see at a standard music label, such as distribution, A&R and promo."[12] Patrick Morales (creative lead behind the Pop/Stars music video), Janelle Jimenez (the lead designer behind the K/DA skins) and Toa Dunn (the head of the Riot Music Group) were the main creators of K/DA.[5] The dances were choreographed by Ellen Kim, Bailey Sok, Stevie Doré and Eileen Harman.[4] 4Minute also served as a source of inspiration behind K/DA.[3] For singing "Pop/Stars", Madison Beer was brought on early, and Jaira Burns followed.[11] As many at Riot were fans of (G)I-dle and liked "the attitude they brought to the song, especially the rap section", Miyeon and Soyeon were brought on as well.[11]

The members of K/DA consist of four characters from the League of Legends video game:

• Ahri (voiced by Miyeon) is a nine-tailed foxgirl mage in League, who is one of the most popular characters in the game. In-game, her abilities revolve primarily around dashing around and a Charm ability which forces enemies to walk towards her.[7] In K/DA, Ahri and Evelynn serve as the main vocalists.[7] According to Miyeon, she started learning more about League and actually played the game as Ahri to better understand her character.[12]
• Akali (voiced by Soyeon) is an assassin-type character in League who weaves in and out of the darkness and throws kunai at opponents.[7] In K/DA, Akali is the rapper of the group.[7] Soyeon said she tried to "feel like Akali and move as if I were Akali" during the motion capture for Pop/Stars.[12]
• Evelynn (voiced by Madison Beer) is, similar to Akali, an assassin-type character, whose lore is centered around being a succubus.[7] In K/DA, Ahri and Evelynn serve as the main vocalists.[7]
• Kai'Sa (voiced by Jaira Burns) is a comparatively new character in the game, and a marksman character. According to her lore, after spending most of her life trapped in The Void, a horrific alternate dimension, she returned as a killer who zooms around and shoots missiles from cannons floating above her shoulders.[7] In K/DA, Kai'Sa is the main dancer of the group.[7]

The characters were chosen from League's character list based on whether players would realistically see them as "Pop Stars".[5] According to Patrick Morales, Ahri was the first character to be chosen for K/DA, due to her previous appearances in League-related music as "Pop Star Ahri" back in 2013.[5] Subsequently, with Ahri being a "beautiful, charming leader"-type character, Evelynn was chosen to contrast to that, by "being the wild and provocative diva of the group".[5] As Akali's character was being reworked at the time, Morales included her into the band as he liked the "rebellious spirit" of the character.[5] Kai'Sa was included due to a recommendation from skins lead Janelle Jimenez, as she wanted a "strong but silent loner who expressed herself on stage through her movements".[5]

The team also wanted diversity in the characters chosen, where each character has a well-defined archetype that allows viewers to easily identify their favourite K/DA member.[5] According to Jimenez, "Pop groups tend to have a formula where each member has their own unique personality and style. I approached this like looking at classic anime team where you have the leader, the shy one, the feisty one, etc."[5] Furthermore, they also wanted to ensure that the characters chosen had differing roles in the game.[5] Pop/Stars was written with these archetypes in mind. For example, a rap section was included in the song as Akali was envisioned to be the rapper, and the pre-chorus was designed to be sung by Ahri.[5]

The K/DA characters have become popular subjects of cosplay (Akali pictured).[2]

K/DA has achieved significant popularity both within and beyond the League of Legends community. Writing for Dot Esports, Aaron Mickunas noted that "It didn't take long for K/DA [...] to completely flood the game’s fan community. Already, the group’s members have been plastered throughout Reddit, Twitter, the game’s forums, and Universe, League's lore platform."[13] Pop/Stars reached number 1 on Billboard's World Digital Song Sales chart in November 2018, becoming the fourth K-pop girl group to do so, and only the fifth female act overall, leading Jeff Benjamin of Billboard to write that "all signs point to esports very possibly shaping what can make a hit song in the future."[14] The song sold 9,000 copies in its opening week, according to Nielsen Music.[14] It also ranked 10th on the Pop Digital Song Sales chart and 30th on Digital Song Sales overall,[10] as well as charting first on Apple Music's K-Pop charts and fifth for pop music overall.[4]

The Pop/Stars music video received 5 million views within 24 hours of its upload to YouTube, breaking the record at the time for the most viewed K-Pop debut group music video within 24 hours of publishing, a record previously held by "La Vie en Rose" by South Korean-Japanese girl group Iz One.[15] The video continued to garner views, receiving over 13 million views within 48 hours [4], when the video trended on the site.[12] On April 2, 2019, the music video reached 200 million views.[16] Benjamin Pu of NBC News wrote that "The song's popularity highlights just how much of a cultural force video games have become in South Korea and around the world."[17]

K/DA's popularity has resulted in a large amount of fanart being created of the group.[18] This includes a large amount of art featuring Akali and Evelynn, as the two were paired up in the Pop/Stars music video, with Akali being the most popular.[18] Cosplay of the characters has also been popular,[2], including when Cloud9's League of Legends esports team cosplayed as the K/DA characters in April 2019.[19] Professional League player Sneaky also cosplayed as K/DA Kai'Sa, and after he posted images of the cosplay on Twitter, the tweets received over 4,500 retweets and 23,700 likes within two days.[20] Shannon Liao of The Verge wrote that through K/DA, "Riot Games has tapped into an audience bigger than the typical League fan base", with ex-players and new players joining the game "because the [Pop/Stars] video looks so cool."[2] Riot's Patrick Morales agreed, noting K/DA's impact goes beyond just that of League fandom, with "one recurring comment that I tend to see on YouTube and social media about the music video is that they're "normally not into League/K-pop/gaming, but K/DA is the exception".[5]

Steven Asarch of Newsweek compared K/DA to the popular K-pop dance group Blackpink.[21] Lucas Lockyer of Dazed called K/DA a mix of "Girls Generation meets Little Mix and Hatsune Miku" and asked if the band was "leading the virtual pop future", where "what was essentially some creative promotional marketing could be the forefront of an interesting new branch of pop [...] Perhaps with developed AR technology, the characters could tour in hologram form without the physical appearance of the singers behind them."[6] When asked about whether this would be possible with a holographic concert or augmented reality technology Viranda Tantula replied that "that could be super fun. But before we’d even consider that, we’d realistically want to make sure there was enough quality music to support it, and a good reason for us, a games company and esports league, to try that out."[3] Pop/Stars was also added as a song to the virtual reality rhythm game Beat Saber as a free download.[22]