In the K-pop industry, a new act’s debut is one of the biggest—and most expensive—commitments and gambles for a record label. But when it came to P1Harmony, not only was the six-member boy band preparing a musical debut but a full-fledged feature film to introduce them to potential fans. It was a new strategy to help the group stand out in a competitive market, but it all at risk of crumbling when a slew of social-media accusations about the group’s leader Keeho made their way on Twitter. While the group successfully navigated the release of their debut EP Disharmony : Stand Out, there’s still air to clear once and for all as the band looks towards a clean slate for 2021.

After the early-September revealing of Keeho (full name Yoon Kee-ho also known as Stephen Yoon) as the leader of P1Harmony, the then-18-year-old was instantly thrust into the spotlight after social-media users made claims that he had made offensive and racist comments and actions in the past on platforms like Twitter and Snapchat. His label FNC Entertainment quickly put out a statement refuting claims of racism, saying that while he was an active social-media user during his school years in Canada, he had run an account for K-pop fans with seven different “acquaintances” online with a shared password. “The old posts that have become an issue recently were not written by Keeho,” FNC said. “However, as a member of the group, he should have recognized the issue with the account and taken actions against it, and it is certainly his fault that he failed to do so. We sincerely apologize to the artists who were affected by this incident and to everyone who was hurt by it.”

Keeho himself followed up with a handwritten note saying, “The owner of the account is me, and me not knowing what was being tweeted and posted is my fault. I once again genuinely apologize.”

While claims have mostly fallen to the wayside, comments have been deleted, along with FNC noting that “personal feelings regarding an acquaintance of [Keeho’s]” led to the targeted posts about Keeho and have since been removed by the original posters, P1Harmony have expressed the importance of wanting to dig into the underlying issues.

“Anyone can say I’m not racist and still be racist,” Keeho shares in a sit-down Zoom call with me where there’s a noticeably different energy compared to a fun-fueled discussion with Amazon Music AMZN during their debut album’s release week. “I think that this interview is, first of all, a great way for me to actually express myself because obviously anyone can say anything in their statement but I want to really show people that we do know about these issues. I’m someone who knows and is very interested in topics, and is someone who is going to continuously try to support those kinds of initiatives. But, in conclusion, I do want to say ‘I’m sorry,’ because of the situation, so many people got hurt, so many people had trauma caused.”

In fact, Keeho shares that he was worried not only his career but the entire team’s future was about to be thrown into limbo over the issue. Collectively, each member of the group had trained for more than a year for their K-pop dreams with Jongseob (the youngest member but with the most time training with four years under his belt before entering the industry), Intak (with three years and eight months of training), Jiung (three years), Keeho (two years, nine months), Soul (two years) and Theo (1.5 years).

“It was very overwhelming for me,” he shares, echoing a sentiment from Jiung earlier about the group’s reaction to the news. “I was very nervous that whole night and, honestly, I couldn’t sleep at all.”

He changes his tone mid-sentence saying, “I don’t want to make myself a victim, but it was just very, very overwhelming and it was something that I had never experienced before. I felt very helpless, like I wanted to run and hide but I knew that there was something I needed to do. Of course, I’m worried about the debut and if it could be canceled, I was constantly worrying and thinking like, ‘What am I going to do?’ Because this is not a game. This is my life, this is my career. And more importantly, I didn’t want anything bad to happen to my members. As a team, they all work just as hard and just because of these accusations, I don’t want their lives to be ruined as well. And so I felt like that kind of responsibility.”

When asked if he was aware of reignited discussions over Black Lives Matter in the wake of summer 2020, particularly among the treatment of Black K-pop fans on social media, Keeho says following those topics led to an even greater shock over the social-media situation in which he found himself.

“That’s why it was more surprising for me to hear those accusations,” he reflects. “Obviously anyone could say that and while I wouldn’t ever ever think to ever be racist to another person, like ever, I felt that’s why it was even more shocking because I constantly am trying to educate myself and constantly trying to be self conscious to be socially aware about these problems. I’m trying to keep our members aware of those things as well, constantly trying to teach ourselves about cultural appropriation, colorism, microaggressions, and, and obviously like you said, Black Lives Matter. We’re always trying to continuously be more socially aware. I feel like that’s our responsibility.”

P1Harmony vocalist Theo takes a moment to echo Keeho’s mentality, saying that the leader is the most sensitive to such social issues and actually had been taking time to open up his team mates’ awareness of such topics while in the midst of preparing for their K-pop entrance as the industry has had longstanding issues with cultural appropriation and a problematic fascination with Black culture.

“It was very unfortunate that he was misunderstood because he is the one that teaches us about why these issues are important even before our debut,” Theo shares. “As a team, we do want their fans to know that it’s a process something we’re working on now and hopefully there won’t be any misunderstanding moving forward.”

P1Harmony is looking ahead to a new year in 2021 with more music planned following the successful launch of Disharmony : Stand Out and a new song “Breakthrough” released at the end of December. Keeho is also taking the high road when it comes to addressing certain people and instead wants to create accountability for himself and P1Harmony.

“I don’t really want talk about the specific people on a public platform,” a now-19-year-old explains. “I went through a lot of stuff, almost traumatic, because of this experience and I went through a really hard time. My members also went through a really hard time and I would never want to give that experience to anybody else especially in being such a global group and having such a big audience. I want to say that even though we might not be perfect right now, we will constantly try to educate ourselves and be able to take responsibility for our actions. I just want to let people know that.”

Source: Forbes – Business