MEPC, K-POP's Multinational Girl Group, Sets Sights on Coachella and MAMA Awards

MEPC, a new K-POP girl group with members from India, Tunisia, Nepal and beyond, opens up about debuting in Seoul and the road that brought them here.

For Jaily, debuting in K-POP once felt like watching a world she could never enter. Now she is standing inside it.

"I've loved K-POP since I was 13, and I thought this was what I wanted to do. But it felt like something happening in a completely different world from mine," she said. "I'm so happy to debut like this. Still, debut is only the start. I'll keep growing until the day we stand on a much bigger stage."

She was speaking on behalf of MEPC, a new multinational K-POP girl group with members from India, Tunisia, Myanmar, Nepal and South Korea. The seven-member act sat down with KPOPIT on January 5 to look back on their first EP, "First Fragment," and the long road that brought them to a Seoul stage.

The promotional cycle is finished, but the debut still does not feel real to some of them. "I'm happy, but maybe because we haven't met fans in person yet, it doesn't quite feel like we've debuted," said Miho. "I hope we get a chance to meet our fans soon. I think it'll hit me then, and I'm looking forward to it."

Ann said the past two years of training together as a group made the live shows feel like they were over in an instant. "We've lived together for two years. We cried, laughed and trained through all of it," she said. "Once we got on stage, it ended too fast. To enjoy fan meetings and concerts for longer, I realized we have to grow and get better."

Jaily echoed the sentiment with a sharper edge. "The first time I stood on stage, I was completely overwhelmed by it. But I don't think we've reached our dream yet. This is only the beginning. I kept thinking we have to keep growing toward bigger stages and bigger dreams."

The group's leader, Solmi, who is from Tunisia, was candid about how hard it has been to build a team out of so many different backgrounds. "Because of cultural differences, even basic communication was difficult at first," she said. "Once we started trying to talk to each other honestly, we slowly got past that and learned to accept one another."

She is also aware of how MEPC looks to a Korean audience. "Out of seven members, only one is Korean. Everyone else is foreign. So the Korean public might doubt whether we can really fit in here," she said. "Even with those differences, we're going to prove that music can create common ground. There's a double challenge. We have to understand each other inside the group, and we also have to make the public outside understand us."

The members' paths to Seoul are unusual even by K-POP's well-traveled standards. Jaily worked as both an actor and a dancer in India before auditioning. "Debuting as an idol in Korea feels like a dream," she said. "I worked as an actor in Bollywood and as a backup dancer, and that's where my hunger for K-POP grew. My parents were against it, so I met people on my own in secret and searched everywhere for a way in, going to auditions."

Hara left an engineering degree in Nepal one year shy of graduation. "I was studying engineering at university, and I came to Korea with one year left until I'd finish," she said. "People say that even as a child, I was always wherever music was playing. I think I was just born loving music." She trained in a hip-hop dance crew as a hobby before friends pushed her to audition. "I studied at university from day into night, then danced until dawn to prepare for the audition."

Anika carries the most personal mission of the group. "There's a reason I really want to make it as a K-POP star in Korea. I want to sing for my role model," she said. She started singing in India at age four, and credits one teacher with shaping not just her voice but her life. "She wasn't just my singing teacher. She was an angel who guided my whole life. She even wrote songs for me, and I promised her that once I got famous, I'd sing them on stage for her." Then her voice fell. "But she passed away a month before I came to Korea. I wanted to show her I was loved by so many people, and it makes me sad that I couldn't. One day, I really want to sing for her on a big stage."

For Keke, who is from Myanmar, debut nearly didn't happen at all. She has been managing multiple sclerosis throughout promotions, but she spoke about it with a steady smile. "A year after I came to Korea, I got sick. All the strength left the left side of my body, and I lost feeling in it," she said. "I couldn't even walk, so how was I supposed to dance? I thought about giving up. But this is the only thing I want to do, so I decided to believe that I could. I take care of myself and manage my health, and I can dance again. Just that alone makes me really happy."

The group's long-term ambitions are not small. Solmi wants Coachella. "I really want to perform at Coachella. There are songs on our debut album that work as a band version, too," she said. "This is a comeback spoiler, but we have a song built for a festival stage like Coachella. My dream is to connect with fans there."

Hara is aiming at home first. "Someday I want to go to the MAMA Awards and win something. Ideally, the daesang," she said, referring to the top prize. "For now, I just want to do a fan meeting. I'm the same as the other members. I want to meet the people who love us."

Jaily is already picturing a tour that follows the group's map. "I want to visit each of our home countries and meet fans there, and show our families a version of us they can be proud of," she said. "I believe that if we take on all kinds of stages and keep growing, we can become the 'aces' of K-POP."