Conan Gray
FROM Georgetown, Texas
AGE 21
LABEL Republic Records
FOUNDATION “My whole life I’ve
been a massive outsider: I’m halfJapanese, half white, but neither one
of those groups of people accepted
me,” says Conan Gray, who grew up a
military brat and had lived in California,
Japan and Texas by the time he was 11.
Hearing Adele’s “Daydreamer” made
him realize he could channel those
emotions into songwriting: “I was like,
‘Oh, my God. I can tell people how
I feel and they will actually listen.’ ”
Gray developed his lo-fi sound with
an acoustic guitar and GarageBand,
joining YouTube in 2013 when he was
14 years old. Initially using the platform
as a vlog, two years later he was post-
ing covers of Adele and Ariana Grande
followed by original songs.DISCOVERY In 2017, Gray uploaded
the track “Idle Town,” written about
his Texas hometown. Within months
the video had millions of views and
caught the eye of admissions at the
University of California, Los Angeles,
which offered him a scholarship. As
Gray started college, though, he found
himself in the middle of a label bidding
war. “I didn’t even know if [the offers]
were real,” says Gray. “I was so naive.”
Republic Records stood out, he says,
due to its roster, which includes Lorde,
Post Malone and Taylor Swift (the lat-
termost is his “favorite songwriter of all
time”). After signing in August 2018, he
left school and released his debut EP,Sunset Season, that November.
FUTURE Gray spent 2019 on the
road, selling out two headlining tours
in North America and one in Europe,
while simultaneously recording his first
album, Kid Krow, out March 20. Soon
after its release, he’ll play 1,500-capac-
ity venues on a new European tour, and
before the end of 2020, he plans to
release more music that continues to
embrace and normalize sadness. “Peo-
ple feed off the fact that I’m perfectly
OK with being sad,” says Gray. “We all
act like we’re so goddamn different,
but in reality, we all have a lot of the
same problems and feel a lot of the
same things.” —TAYLOR WEATHERBYONE TO WATCH36 BILLBOARD • FEBRUARY 29, 2020MONSTA X: DENNIS LEUPOLD. GRAY: IMAGESPACE/MEDIAPUNCH/IPX.L
ESS THAN THREE
months after Monsta X
released its debut EP,
Trespass, in May 2015, the
Seoul-based boy band, under
South Korean label Starship
Entertainment, made its first stateside
appearance as part of the KCON Los
Angeles festival that summer. At the
time, the largest-scale K-pop tour had
been a nine-date theater run by hip-
hop trio Epik High — one of six male
K-pop tours to hit the United States
that year. This year alone, so far nine
South Korea-based acts, both male and
female, have completed U.S. treks, with
13 K-pop groups including Monsta X
confirmed to play U.S. shows in the
coming months. Monsta X’s summertour will be its most ambitious, with 17
North American dates; in comparison,
BTS’ upcoming Map of the Soul trek
includes eight U.S. stadiums and
Blackpink played five U.S. cities on its
2019 In Your Area world tour.
“We never expected to even have
shows at big arenas like the Staples
Center or, this year, at [L.A.-area
venue] The Forum,” says Monsta X
rapper I.M. “But we’ve never felt
like we’ve needed to limit ourselves.”
Jbeau Lewis, the music agent at UTA
who works with the group, notes that
booking regions besides major cities
was vital to planning this outing. “Ex-
panding beyond the limited handful
of core K-pop markets into key cities
like Detroit, Toronto and Washington,D.C. — where there is not only an Asian
American crowd but also a diverse and
widespread pop audience — is a critical
piece of [our] strategy,” he says. “We
want to reach as many fans, both old
and new, as we can.”
The tour follows Monsta X’s debut
English-language album, All About
Luv, its first full-length released on
Epic Records, which bowed at No. 5
on the Billboard 200. The lead single,
“Who Do U Love?” (featuring French
Montana), made Monsta X the second
K-pop group to appear on Billboard’s
Pop Songs chart. The group has heavily
promoted the new release stateside
with high-profile TV appearances on
Today, The Kelly Clarkson Show and at
the 2019 Teen Choice Awards.But since its 2019 tour, Monsta X
has battled internal issues, as origi-
nal vocalist Wonho announced his
departure from the group last October
(in part due to a series of accusations
made against him on social media that
Starship vowed to fight legally) and
rapper Joohoney took a leave of ab-
sence in January (to deal with anxiety).
Now, with the 2020 tour coming up,
the group’s focus is primarily on self-
improvement: Member Kihyun says
the band is eating healthier (Minhyuk
is regularly eating breakfast for the
first time in his life) and working out
more frequently to be in the best physi-
cal and mental shape. Adds I.M: “And
Joohoney is going to join our world
tour — don’t worry about that.”From left: Monsta X’s
Shownu, I.M, Minhyuk,
Joohoney, Kihyun
and Hyungwon.
ON THE ROADK-Pop’s X Factor
Monsta X expands upon the genre’s touring blueprint in the U.S. by looking beyond the major markets
BY JEFF BENJAMIN