Petals of Success

Ch.1: Pilot

Logan parallel parked her car in an open spot on the side of the curb. She took the keys out of the ignition and stepped out of the luxury vehicle. Her hair whipped through the crisp June breeze of L.A as her heels clicked against the concrete of the sidewalk. The sun was setting and the street lights were flickering on. The girl clicked on her smartphone to check the time.

8:10pm.

She was ten minutes late. Hopefully her date wouldn’t be too upset with her. Logan made it to the restaurant and walked inside, being met with the hostess.

“Welcome! Table for 1?” she asked.

“No, I’m actually meeting someone here.” Logan said. “Hadya Cardoso?”

“Ah, right this way then!” the hostess smiled before grabbing a menu and leading Logan to the second floor of the restaurant, one meant for reserved private parties. When they finished going up the stairs, Logan saw the place was pretty vacant besides a sorrel skinned woman with long chocolate brown hair and vibrant amber eyes who was looking over her menu. The hostess sat the menu on the table across from the seated woman before leaving; assuring a waiter would come to take their orders. The woman, Hadya, looked up at Logan before smiling at her.

“Hey there, baby girl.” she greeted standing up from her seat and smoothing out her black Armani pants suit before hugging the girl and kissing her.

“Hey, mom.” Logan giggled, hugging the woman back. The two sat down at the table. “I’m sorry I’m late. We ran a little behind schedule at the studio.” she added.

“That’s fine. How are Mr. Timberlake and Mrs. Knowles-Carter doing?” Hadya asked.

“They’re fine, actually. Justin and Queen B are doing really good.” Logan replied. The girl worked as a music composer for some of the biggest global music icons in the game. Many artists including the ones mentioned often request for her to help produce their future releases. Logan has been regarded as a rising phenomenon because of her growing list of awards, including Grammy’s and Oscars, and global recognition for her talent. Not to mention she was only 18 years old. Not a bad accomplishment if the young Cardoso said so herself. “Beyoncé also brought along Baby Blue which was nice. She is so cute but she was such a diva towards Miko. It was highly amusing.”

Miko, as in Miko Lang, was basically Logan’s partner in crime. Logan has always deemed herself as the “female David Foster of the 21^st century” meaning that she was better at making music and would quietly bring the rhythms forming in her head to life using her instrumental prowess. Miko on the other hand was the best smooth talker, the true poet at heart. She was a fantastic lyricist and the much more outgoing and romantically experienced counterpart in their little duo. They were also soul sisters and best friends with a long standing history.

“I bet that was very funny to watch.” Hadya snickered just as a waitress came and took their drink orders.

Logan nodded. “So how was the business venture in Japan? Did you accomplish whatever you went there to do?” she asked her mother.

“Absolutely! I wouldn’t be the great Hadya Rousseau if I didn’t.” the woman replied confidently. Hadya was a former model turned global management entrepreneur. Like Olivia Pope with political scandals, Hadya Cardoso, more commonly known as Hadya Rousseau, was a fixer when it came to underwhelming and constitutionally illegal management systems. Alongside her fellow Armani suited warriors, Hadya would buy out underwhelming companies and make them abide by her formulaic system of operation, which had a nearly perfect success rate. Also, if she saw that a company was doing exceptionally well, she would invest in stock to give her input which is what she did in Japan. She was smart, ambitious, passionate, and strategically calculated, all of which made her the multi-billionaire mogul she was today. Hadya referred to herself as a hustler because nothing made her happier than the thought large sums of money and happy clients. “Sony Music is a great company which has been doing really well so the investment wasn’t in vain but it does need a little input when it comes to contract agreements, if I say so myself. Japan is the second biggest music provider besides the United States after all.”

“I’m proud of you, mom.” Logan smiled. She really admired her mother because she was a true superwoman. She had seven kids and still held down the fort they called home, along with her father, while she still did her job. Logan knew she got tired and worn out from doing everything but Hadya’s passion and strive overshadowed it. It was truly moving and inspirational and she wanted to succeed just as much as she did. She was her role model. “I guess I should be happy I told you about AKB48 and how successful they are.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right.” Hadya chuckled. “This is why I have something else to ask of you, my dear.”

“What is it?”

“Have you heard of the growing phenomenon, Kpop?” Hadya asked and Logan raised an eyebrow at her.

“After all the work that I’ve done in the Korean music industry, you’re seriously asking me this question?”

Hadya laughed. “My mistake! Let me clarify a bit. I know more of the business aspect of the industry but I need more input from the mind of a longtime fan.”

“Okay.” Logan responded just as the waitress came out with their drinks and took their food orders. “What exactly do you need to know?”

“Just a fan’s perception about how the companies are as a whole, the various acts underneath them, any controversies I should know about, etc. Just stuff like that.” Hadya explained.

Logan nodded. “Okay, I can tell you that Kpop is a really new phenomenon only truly starting out in the early 90s, after decades of traditional folk music and ballads. A three member group Seo Taiji&Boys initially changed the game for the industry because they drew in a teen audience and starting the boy/girl band trend. When they retired, the group H.O.T became the first boy band to sweep the country followed by many other classic groups like Fin.K.L, Baby V.O.X, Shinhwa and g.o.d. Since then, countless numbers of groups and entertainment companies have been formed and some have tried to reach out to foreign markets, mainly Japan, the U.S though not as successfully, and as of late China, to spread what is called the Hallyu Wave. There may be a lot of companies in Korea but there are three companies, S.M Entertainment, Y.G Entertainment, and JYP Entertainment, who are really well known and held to high regards. They are often regarded as the Big 3.” she said.

“S.M is the largest and oldest of the three, being the creators of H.O.T and Shinhwa who were pioneers of the group movement. They have a bunch of well-known artists such as BoA, Super Junior, Girls Generation, SHINee, f(x), and most recently Exo, whom I really like. They are very visual company with a lot of attractive idols and have some of the best vocalists in the game. Y.G is the second most popular and was founded by one of the members of Seo Taiji&Boys, Yang Hyunsuk, and the artist most notable for their tough and charismatic images. It’s also the company I work the most with and I would also say that aside from the K-hip hop and underground scene, they have the most talented rappers and most well-rounded artists in the whole industry. Their current artists include top groups Big Bang and 2NE1 and many solo acts such as Gummy, Se7en, Tablo, Lee Hi, who’s going to debut soon, and Psy.”

“The Gangnam Style guy?” Hadya asked.

“Yeah, the final Big 3 group is JYP, which was founded by a solo singer, Park Jinyoung, who is also good friends with Yang Hyunsuk. He is responsible for the pioneer group, g.o.d, Rain and Wonder Girls, whom tried to venture over to the American market, as well as other groups such as Miss A, 2PM, 2AM, and a few new rookie artists. All three companies have helped shape Kpop into what they are but it’s really frustrating with the way they operate thing.”

“How so?” Hadya asked curiously.

“I’ll start with JYP. I feel their music all gives the same vibe. It isn’t a bad thing given the fact that each company gives a certain feel but most of the music is produced by JYP himself without much of the other artist doing anything to distinguish their sound. They seem to also have some money management issues. There was such a large investment in the Wonder Girls to do well in the states but that didn’t happen and I think they are still trying get back on their feet. Next is YG and I’m going to try to not be biased. YG invest so much in Big Bang and atleast 70% of the revenue comes from Big Bang activities, which is very risky in the case of them losing momentum. They also only debut groups every three to five years, so at one point in time all they had was mainly Big Bang to bring in an income and I understand that, but they need to get it together and have faith in the other acts.” Logan explained. “They also have pretty crappy time management. I don’t know how many times they have pushed a scheduled comeback or debut to another day. It takes almost a year after the announcement for a new release to come out which makes both the artists and the fans annoyed. They’re also very picky with the show appearances, only going on SBS for the most part, and that’s not very fair to the other networks or the fans that want to see them on different show programs but they’re trying to fix it, very slowly I might add but still. Then we have S.M.” she sighed.

“That bad, huh?”

“Let me see, is it normal to have slave contracts that are around 13 years in length?”

“What?! You can’t be serious?” Hadya exclaimed, absolutely mortified. “I can’t believe this.”

“Believe it, mom. It also includes being overworked with only about 2 weeks of vacation time a year if they’re lucky. They also have to work even when they’re injured for the most part, flu, strained back muscle, you name it. They also don’t pay their idols all that much because of the debt they seem to garner when they are trainees and profits are split about 80-20, management to artist and then to top it all off they have these groups with like 50 members in them that they have to divide the profits with. The only way they can make profit is if they do individual projects but then that brings up another point with how biased SM is with their artists, which is why they have so many lawsuits.”

“Lawsuits against these slave contracts?”

“Precisely. My favorite group, aside from my YG groups, from when I first started to like Kpop was DBSK and three out of the five members, who are now a group called JYJ, left because of the unfair pay and 13 year contract. It broke mine and thousands of other fan’s hearts. Then there is the way they treat their foreign artists. You’ve worked with Yue Hua so you’ve atleast heard of Hangeng. He was a former member of Super Junior, was the first foreigner, hailing from China, to debut in Korea. Since he is very popular in China, SM tried to use him as a way to tap into the Chinese market but that backfired big time. Not only did he have a slave contract, he came from a poor family background and didn’t have enough money to support his family, he was purposely discriminated against by the company and broadcasting networks, and had a health issues due to not having proper recuperation time.” Logan paused. “It’s so blatantly obvious that they don’t give the foreign artist a fair chance. Fans try to make excuses but there aren’t any to justify it. My thing is that they want to tackle the Chinese markets, so why not utilize the foreign artists. They could make them do individual projects there so people can be more curious about them but they choose not to. They’re also not demanding the Korean artist to learn Mandarin or any other language but the foreign ones must learn Korean, how does that help with foreign marketing if the artists don’t understand and can’t communicate to sell themselves?”

“That is a big problem and not strategically smart.” Hadya replied looking very thoughtful.

“I feel like this level of inequality is going to drive the foreign artist towards filing for legal justice, my next bet is that it comes from either Exo or f(x). YG and JYP don’t have these types of problems because there is a much more understandable treatment for the artists and it literally makes me upset that SM does this. They are the pioneers, the ones who created the first noted Kpop group, and took the first step towards creating the Hallyu wave, and this is what it becomes? A corrupt mess full of mistreatment? All the artists want to do is have the chance to make an honest living, to live out their dream doing something they love whether it be acting, or singing, while getting paid for doing such. They should be treated as humans with needs and emotions not dolls that need to wound up every now and again. It’s just so disheartening.” Logan sighed before looking at her mother. Hadya had a very devious and calculated look on her face. Logan’s gray eyes gave the woman a very skeptical look. “Uh oh. You have that “I found a new challenge” look on your face.”

“Really, I had no idea.” Hadya replied in her best innocent Southern belle accent while batting her long eyelashes. Logan rolled her eyes and shook her head.

“Whatever you say, mom. Just make sure f(x) finally gets the support and love they deserve. They debuted the same year as 2NE1 and haven’t had a single concert while 2NE1 has had 3 so far.” Logan informed her mother already knowing she was going to do something with SM. She had full faith in her. The waitress finally brought out their dinner orders and they thanked her.

“Don’t worry, baby girl. Mommy plans to make a lot of people very happy and make a lot of money in the process.” Hadya smiled.

“Well hustle on, great one.” Logan chuckled.                                                                 

“Now you can tell me about Korean scenery and environment. I’ve only been a few times for business and haven’t stayed very long.”

“Oh, mommy, please. Can we talk about Korea some other time? I much rather devour my steak right now.” Logan begged with a slight giggle. “All that ranting made me beyond hungry.”

Hadya chuckled before taking a sip of her wine. “Okay, maybe some other time then.”

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