Do You Know Who We Are?
Which group looks happier to you?
For the longest time, I didn’t even know any of their names.
I just knew they were a kpop group that completely overused autotune. I supposed they probably couldn’t sing, and as one of my best friends had quaintly stated before, the sheer noise of their music “hurt my ears after listening for too long”…
But with their newest promotions for their song “0330”, U-Kiss had caught my attention. Not just because my friends kept talking about their so-called “great new image”, but because I sincerely liked “0330”. But then recently, I began to delve beyond past just their music, as I tried to find out more about the two members they had recently replaced from their original group.
Alexander and Kibum.
I will admit, I didn’t think much of them at first, but then I began to learn more… I’m not sure if this is all correct, but the following is what I have gathered from various articles my friend showed me on allkpop.com.
Look:
Kibum stated, “My contract with my former agency has been cancelled. Around February, the agency told me that they would like to do some member replacements, and when I asked if it was me who was to get replaced, they replied yes. First of all, they said my vocal role in the group was weak. I respected my agency’s opinion and agreed to cancel my contract... Well, I think there were a lot of areas I lacked in. I think my capability as a singer was lacking. There are a lot of fans who’ve told me to come back, and there are a lot of people who say it’s not U-KISS without [the original] seven members. I’m apologetic towards the fans because of how this situation came out to be. They believed in me, so I’m hurt that Alexander and I had to withdraw from U-KISS. I’m a bit disappointed that I didn’t get to stay on my will. If U-KISS becomes more successful with member replacements, then I guess I’m fine with that.”
“I didn’t quit, they canceled my contract,” said Kim Kibum in a phone conversation with Newsen on February 23rd. Kibum added, “the agency first told us they are going to replace two members. They demanded me to sign an agreement on canceling my contract, so I did.” Kibum says he didn’t voluntarily quit U-Kiss to focus on his Piro Piro character business but was required to sign the contract cancellation agreement and leave the group. Kibum says his business never distracted him from his U-Kiss activities and prioritized U-Kiss over anything else. "I thought of the members like my family…no, more than that. I’m so sad to say good-bye to them like this but I do respect the agency’s decision to replace me with someone better.”
“I received notice of my contract termination very suddenly. We were all doing well, and had recently came back from an overseas schedule. I did notice that my personal schedules began disappearing about a month before I was told of my termination. My appearance for shows I was scheduled to attend would be canceled, or another member would take my place. I didn’t think much of it, but after I was told, I realized that they had been preparing my departure since then.”
He went on to add that although there were consequences for the artist terminating his contract with the agency (in terms of fines), there were no penalties for agencies when they cancel their contracts with the artists. Kibum revealed that although the contract between the members and the company were similar, there was an unequal distribution of income, as well as uneven contract lengths. In addition, he stated that U-KISS had never received a cent from their album sales, physical or digital. When they earned money from CF deals, it was split twice - the first cut would be between the company and the group, and then the remaining share was divided again amongst the individual group members.
“I did leave U-Kiss,” said Alexander on the phone with Newsen. “But it wasn’t because of school like they stated.” IN OTHER WORDS: They lied about me. They tried to cover up their horrendous actions, they tried to hide the painful truth from you. They don’t feel any regret at all over what they did.
It was only around 8 months ago that Kibum said this on U-Kiss’ second year anniversary: “It’s been two years! There’s still a lot of time for us to be together in the future, right? Aja! I love you!” I can’t help but feel terrible in saying NO. There will be no more time for you. Your time is up. Your future with U-Kiss is over. It doesn’t matter how much you love your fans. They are being told to move on without you. You’re being replaced. We don’t need you anymore. We never even wanted you. LEAVE. We’re glad you’re never coming back.
Personally, I want to know how the other members feel about this.
A comment that I saw on the site and COMPLETELY agreed with:
“So basically if you are in U-Kiss and "not good enough" you will be forced to quit and will be replaced. In the future, will they replace Eli, Kevin, Dongho, Soohyng and Kiseop too? What's the point? NH should really be thinking of replacing someone in their company and not band members!!! This just makes me mad, that the only way to "better" something is to just replace it with "a newer model"!”
Apparently, one of the new members is a theater major while the other is a former Paran member. My question is HOW IS THAT SO MUCH BETTER? I mean, I respect the theater major guy because he does sing well.. But the other guy just raps. And I'm pretty sure Alexander with his knowledge of 7 languages and immense capability to rap (and enough fame to be the ONLY other member with Kevin featured in their Brave Brothers song) is just as good, if not BETTER. I mean, really, I bet he also helped them gain TONS of overseas fans. Not that many artists speak that many languages.. And it’s true that you really do like an artist better if you can understand what they're saying..
Same goes for Kibum. I bet a lot of u-kiss fans found out about U-Kiss BECAUSE of him. Because of his brother. I’m pretty sure the company took advantage of his ties to SS501 to link their two groups together A LOT. And they most likely gained many, many fans because of Kibum's "connections". It feels like they just used Kim Kibum’s name and Alexander’s languages to get the group popular enough to be heard of, but then kicked them out like they had always planned to, since they actually had always just thought they were, in reality, too terribly INFERIOR.
WHAT IS THIS!?! That is just wrong. That is just terrible.
How could they possibly think this wouldn’t hurt the fans? I’m not even a big U-Kiss fan (I mean, really, I quite literally just learned all of this a couple hours ago...) but it even makes me angry. Not only does this sound horribly unfair and unjust, but if the two members were really all that inferior, why put them into the group in the first place? Why give the fans an opportunity to learn about them, love them, care for them, to then just simply tear them away like yesterday’s news?
I imagine for all the U-KISS fans out there, it'd be like if Yuto was suddenly cut from JUMP. They had just used his fame from the junior days, acting in dramas and pvs, and being one of the biggest the centers of attention in JJ Express, to get fans for JUMP, but then when he got older, they decided he had just become so immensely INFERIOR in comparison to the rest of the group, so just kicked him out.
I would be so mad. I would be so devastated.
I can't even imagine how horrifying it would be for him.
I deeply respect Alexander and Kibum, for keeping as much as they had left of their dignity in this devastating time. I can't even imagine how hard they must've worked, training, debuting, perfecting their performances, rehearsal after rehearsal. The friendship, the bonds, the fans, it's all been snatched away. The effort, the care, the time and energy, the commitment put into all of this, it's all gone to waste. If it were me, I would feel so lost. So alone. So betrayed. Where would I go from here? What will the future hold for me? This single decision of my termination would have changed my life forever. And even though, at this point, it’s impossible to tell, it seems hopeless. It seems like there’s nothing out there for me. There doesn’t seem like there could be much good coming from this for me at all. But what can I do?
Nothing.
All I have left to say is, even now, when times are getting tough, I really just genuinely hope they'll be able to pull through, as a whole. At this point, it's probably impossible for U-Kiss to be brought back together and changed into a new nine-member group, as people have been suggesting, "member additions are fine, REPLACEMENTS are not!", but still... I hope that even in the future, there will still be more of their music to look forward to. And perhaps we haven't even heard the last of Alexander and Kibum. Who knows? We'll just have to wait and see what fate will bring them next.
U-Kiss FIGHTING!! >w<
