In October 2014, Bora Kim, alongside Karin Kuroda and Samantha Shao, started the "I'm Making A Boy Band" project to research and highlight the cultural phenomenon of the Korean Wave as a thesis project at Columbia University. For this project, they opened auditions to recruit "non-Korean members that would represent New York" for a K-pop boy group named EXP. Eventually, six members were selected: Hunter, Frankie, Sime, Koki, David and Tarion.
On April 26, 2015, the group made their debut with the digital single "Luv/Wrong". On May 9, they opened a Kickstarter project to crowdfund an album and a documentary tracking the development of EXP and IMMABB. The project ended on June 8 and managed to raise $30,000.
On August 20, EXP released their second single "Nolja Let's Party". On November 6, the group released a music video for their debut single "Luv/Wrong". The same month, it was announced that David had left the group to pursue his dream as an actor and model.
With this, EXP returned as five on with their third single "Feel Like This" on November 21, which was released on their official website. In January 2016, the group started teasing their fourth single. However, the single ended up not getting released.
After Bora's MFA program ended and she was awarded her masters, the group decided to continue as a real K-pop group. In August 2016, the group made their official move to Korea without Tarion as he was focusing on his solo music career in the US. On April 18, they made their debut in South Korea with the digital single "Feel Like This".
However, the debut faced mixed responses from international K-pop fans. While some were excited to see K-pop branch out, many reacted with animosity and felt that the group was taking away from Asian artists and appropriating the genre. In addition, many thought they didn’t have the proper training to become an idol and didn’t fit the industry’s standards in terms of music or performance.
On April 26, the group made their music show debut with their first performance on Show Champion. On January 11, 2018, the group released their first mini album First Edition, with "Stress" serving as the title track. In August 2020, the group announced plans for a comeback in a YouTube video.
However, the comeback ended up getting cancelled and the group presumably disbanded.
Discography
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