[s@nbi]

I found 3 articles on Rain. I believe Rain will succeed in the US. I think he will.
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MTV World to Showcase Korean Pop Superstar Rain With Its First Ever Live Music Production, 'MTV Presents: Rain - Live In New York'
Tuesday January 31, 7:29 pm ET
SuChin Pak to Host Special Offering Fans an Exclusive Live Performance and Opportunity to Meet the Headline-Grabbing Artist

NEW YORK, Jan. 31 /PRNewswire/ -- MTV World today announced plans to produce an exclusive live performance special featuring Korean pop superstar Rain on Friday, February 3 at MTV's Studios in Times Square. "MTV Presents: Rain - Live In New York" will provide the explosive superstar his first US opportunity to perform for and meet with his fans up close and personal, and the production also marks the first live music production for MTV World. MTV World operates television networks designed to super-serve ethnic populations in the United States, with Chinese-American focused MTV Chi and South-Asian- centric MTV Desi available on DIRECTV and MTV K, a 24-hour music channel catering to Korean-Americans, scheduled to launch later this year.

MTV News' SuChin Pak will host the special, talking to Rain about his music, his rising star throughout Asia, his plans to break in the United States and offering fans the chance to ask questions during the special. Rain and his four dancers will perform exclusively for MTV World's cameras, and meet his fans in the studio audience during a question and answer period. "MTV Presents: Rain -- Live in New York" will air live on 44-1/2, the world's largest HDTV screen located across the street from MTV's studios in New York City's Times Square, from 2:00pm to 3:30pm (ET), on MTV K during its launch week and on MTV Chi in March.

"Having an artist like Rain perform in an exclusive setting such as this marks an important milestone for MTV World," said Nusrat Durrani, Sr. Vice President and General Manager, MTV World. "Not only does it allow us unfettered access to one of the fasting rising stars on the planet, but it also furthers our commitment to breaking artists for US audiences."

Pop impresario and label manager J.Y. Park in conjunction with Dreamville Entertainment and Rainstone Live are bringing Rain -- also known to his fans as 'Bi', which means 'rain' in Korean -- to America for two concert dates at Madison Square Garden. The record label JYP has granted MTV World exclusive and unparalleled access to the artist, as MTV crews follow him as he prepares for one of the biggest performances of his life. During the shoot of "Hangin' With Rain," MTV will be behind the scenes and with Rain every step of the way as he prepares for his Madison Square Garden concerts and MTV performance, allowing fans to see first hand preparation and motivations that drive the immensely successful artist. "Hangin' With Rain" will also be showcased during the launch week of MTV K and will air on MTV Chi in March.

"It's great to see an Asian superstar like Rain not only sell out two nights at Madison Square Garden, but also receive such a positive welcome from American media and the general public," said Woo Seok Rhee, CEO of Rainstone Live, and concert and music production company focused on bringing Asian artists to the U.S.

Rain is a big favorite among MTV's international audiences, having received the 'triple crown' of 2005 when he was awarded Best Korean Artist honors at all three Asian MTV award shows: the MTV Asia Awards, the MTV CCTV Mandarin Music Honors and the MTV Video Music Awards Japan. His most recent album, "It's Raining," has enjoyed success in Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, China, Singapore, Indonesia and Thailand, having sold more than 1 million copies to date. He also stars in the Korean popular television drama "Full House" and was named Best Actor at the Korean Broadcasting System Awards.

Tickets to the exclusive live performance special "MTV Presents: Rain - Live In New York" are available on a limited basis on the MTV Chi website (http://www.mtvchi.com).

MTV Networks, a unit of Viacom (NYSE: VIA - News, VIA.B - News), is one of the world's leading creators of programming and content across all media platforms. MTV Networks, with more than 100 channels worldwide, owns and operates the following television programming services - MTV: MUSIC TELEVISION, MTV2, VH1, mtvU, NICKELODEON, NICK at NITE, COMEDY CENTRAL, TV LAND, SPIKE TV, CMT, NOGGIN, VH1 CLASSIC, LOGO, MTVN INTERNATIONAL and THE DIGITAL SUITE FROM MTV NETWORKS, a package of 13 digital services, all of these networks trademarks of MTV Networks. MTV Networks connects with its audiences through its robust consumer products businesses and its more than 95 interactive properties worldwide, including online, broadband, wireless and interactive television services and also has licensing agreements, joint ventures, and syndication deals whereby all of its programming services can be seen worldwide.

Source: MTV Networks
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A strong forecast for Korean pop's Rain
By Deborah Sontag The New York Times

FRIDAY, JANUARY 27, 2006

Rain, a Korean pop star, actor and pan-Asian heartthrob, is preparing for two concerts at Madison Square Garden this week by studying. Day and night, an English tutor trails him through Seoul, peppering him with conversational phrases as he labors to polish his singing, his martial arts-inflected dancing and, presumably, his chest baring.

You can never be too prepared to go global.

At 23, Rain, who has been labeled the Korean Justin Timberlake and the Korean Usher, is a serious and driven performer (with washboard abs, winsome looks and a Gene Kelly-like ability to leap through puddles while performing his hit song, "It's Raining"). He wants nothing less than to break down barriers, build cultural bridges and become the first Asian pop star to succeed in America.

"The United States is the dominant music market," he said through an interpreter in a recent phone interview from Seoul. "I would really like to see an Asian make it there. I would like that Asian to be me. That's why I'm studying the language, reading up on the culture and practicing every day to correct my weaknesses."

Since his debut in 2002, Rain, whose real name is Ji-Hoon Jung, has been riding what is known as the Korean Wave. As South Korean products, from cellphones to the music known as K-pop, have swept across Asia, Koreans have coined a new term, hallyu, to describe the phenomenon. Through his leading roles in soap operas and his music, Rain has become the personification of hallyu, which some see as a high-quality regional alternative to American cultural dominance.

Rain is inspired by American pop music, but his interpretations provide, at the least, an Asian face and filter. His producer, Jin-Young Park, describes Rain's music as more "sensitive and delicate" than American R&B and says that his choreography is crisper and more precise, influenced by classical dance and martial arts.

"In Rain, Asians might see the spirit of Usher or Timberlake or even Michael Jackson, but he makes the music theirs," said Nusrat Durrani, senior vice president and general manager of MTV World. "He is a huge star in the making, but, at the same time, he is a very indigenous artist and a source of local pride."

Last year, Rain sold out arenas across Korea, China and Japan, playing to more than 40,000 in Beijing and 20,000 in the Budokan in Tokyo. America, with its growing interest in Asian popular culture, from Pokemon to Bollywood, was the obvious next frontier.

But Park - a 34-year-old impresario who is Rain's Henry Higgins - said that Rain will be not be officially ready to cross over until approximately October. That, according to a meticulously devised business plan, is when he is expected to achieve basic fluency in English, to release an English-language album and to smite the hearts of American young women.

The performances at the Theater at Madison Square Garden on Thursday and Friday are merely a prelude. "This is for the American music industry," said Park, "basically introducing Rain, giving a taste, and everybody is coming."

Most of the 10,000 people coming, however, will need no introduction. Like Julie Cho, 25, vice president of the Young Korean American Network in New York, who considers Rain "a really good dancer" and "very humble," they are already fans.

Immigrants or children of immigrants, they live in an era when technology makes it easy to connect with their homeland. Small-time entrepreneurs have long catered to the immigrant appetite for culture from back home. But what used to happen on a neighborhood level - a Colombian dance troupe at a Queens community center - is now taking place on a much larger scale. Like Rain, foreign artists are filling mainstream venues, their fans primed by the songs, videos, television shows and films that are ever more accessible through the Web, satellite television and new media outlets targeting hyphenated Americans.

Thus, word spread very quickly through New York's Korean community that a Korean pop star was coming to town. "There is definitely a sense of Rain-mania washing across the 32nd Street land here in Manhattan," Minya Oh, a D.J. on New York's Hot 97 radio station, said, referring to the city's small Koreatown.

This is not Rain's first performance in the United States. He played at a Korean festival at the Hollywood Bowl last year, and Susan Kim, a sociologist in Los Angeles, regrets that she missed the show.

She and her American-born children discovered Rain, whom they refer to by his Korean name, Bi, on a Korean music Web site called Bugs. Then they sought out videos of a Korean mini-series, "Full House," in which Rain plays a pop star.

As of this month, "Full House" became available with English subtitles on New York cable, too, through ImaginAsian TV, which bills itself as America's first Asian-American network.

And soon, Rain's music videos will find a platform on MTV-K, a channel catering to Korean-Americans that will begin later this year.

MTV-K will feature a diverse array of Seoul music, including hip-hop artists like M.C. Mong, boy bands like HOT and melodic harmonizers like SG Wannabe (the SG stands for Simon and Garfunkel).

Inevitably, non-Asian Americans are discovering such easily accessible foreign culture, too. Because of the "multidirectional flow of cultural goods around the world," there is a "new pop cosmopolitanism," according to Henry Jenkins, professor of comparative media studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In an essay in "Globalization" (University of California Press, 2004), Jenkins writes that "younger Americans are distinguishing themselves from their parents' culture through their consumption of Japanese anime and manga, Bollywood films and bhangra, and Hong Kong action movies."

Indeed, Michael Hong, chief executive officer of ImaginAsian Entertainment, said that 60 percent of those who watch his company's Asian channels are not of Asian ethnicity. Similarly, at his company's two-year-old East 59th Street movie theater in Manhattan, which shows only Asian films, 70 percent of the audience is non-Asian.

"There is a great deal of interest in Asian content right now," said Hong, who helped set up and promote the Madison Square Garden concert. "Rain is just the tip of the iceberg." In the recent interview, Rain said that he had been dreaming about Madison Square Garden since he was a child imitating Michael Jackson's moves. "It is an incredible honor to perform there," he said. And yet he is preparing himself for failure: "In the case that my music is not loved by the American people, I will work very hard to fix things and hope to please them the next time."

Park said he believed that other Asian pop stars have failed in the United States by trying "to impersonate what was going on here." He said that he and Rain wanted to avoid "being another couple of Asian dudes trying to do black music" by embracing their inner delicacy and letting their Asian-ness show.

The moment is ripe, Park said. "Every market has been tapped except for the Asian market, and that's 5 percent of America," he said. "That's our base. But I believe that we can move beyond that."

Credits to International Herald Tribune
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Rain check

A loss leaves Korean pop star intent on success

By REBECCA LOUIE

Korean star Rain

Fan Jenny Nam of Manhattan

It took a devastating death to give Rain's career life.

The Korean pop star, beloved in Asia for R&B music and TV roles, lost his mother to diabetes five years ago.

Asia's answer to Usher and Justin Timberlake steers clear of drink, drugs, girls and (seemingly) rest to focus on performing, a job made possible by the woman who sacrificed insulin shots and medical care so he could study his craft.

"I am 23," Rain, born Jung Ji-Hoon, says through an interpreter, "and I'm like the average boy who wants to hang with friends, have a girlfriend and sleep eight or 10 hours a day. But when my mother passed away, I made up my mind that someday I would be the top star in the world to honor my mom. I have no regret for this lifestyle."

J.Y. Park, the music star who discovered Rain when the teen lived with his family in a one-room home, adds of his self-denying prodigy, "Only monks, reverends and Rain live like that. That is why I think he can make it anywhere in the world."

The Asian Adonis � whose rippled abs, chiseled arms and graceful 6-foot-3 frame flood fans with joy � hopes to parlay his overseas success to the American music market. Last year, he was named top Korean artist at the MTV Video Music Awards Japan. His 20,000-ticket summer shows in Korea and Hong Kong sold out in a day.

Now on Thursday and Friday, Rain storms the stage at the Theater at Madison Square Garden. He also plans to release an English-language album later this year.

"History unfortunately suggests that Rain will have a hard road to climb," says Jeff Yang, an Asian-market expert for consumer-strategy firm Iconoculture. "Pop music is littered with Asian stars who have tried to cross over," among them Hong Kong's Coco Lee and Japan's Utada.

But, says Yang, the appeal of Asian stars is growing. "If Rain is well managed by his people, with his looks and charisma and idol qualities, he really could have enough to make a difference."

Back when he was just a droplet, Rain studied music, dance and fashion at Park's Seoul-based J.Y.P. Academy.

"He was 17 when he came in to audition," recalls Park, who has composed tracks for Mase, Will Smith and Omarion and writes all of Rain's music. "He just gave me this look of true desperation. I always go for that hunger � it makes superstars. Since then, if I tell him to do something, it is always overdone in a good way."

Park partnered with financial guru Horace Madison, whose musical clients include OutKast and Usher, to release Rain's English-language album on their label, Bridge Records. Rain is studying English (as well as Chinese and Japanese), and says he has four songs already in the bank.

"There has been no Asian artist who has succeeded in the American music market," says Rain slowly, showing off his elementary English, "and I hope to be the one. I think this album is not merely just an album, but the �" and here the translator jumps in, "The interchange of culture between Asia and America."

Some Americans don't need the hunk to cross language lines. Jenny Nam, a 25-year-old graphic designer from Manhattan, is already a fan. She catches Rain on video tapes and Korean cable channels.

"I am so excited to see him," says the MSG ticket-holding fan, who collects postcards plastered with images of Rain. "I can't believe he's really coming to New York!"

On why she's devoted, she explains, "He is different from big stars � he seems more kind and polite. I also like his look. His body is well shaped and he's tall. Then there's his smile. His voice. The way he's dressed. Everything!"

And for that reason, fans can look forward to a forecast of Rain.

Hunky math

It's okay to use a cheat sheet when you want to ace the test. Korean pinup Rain looks like he took notes from some of our sexiest singers. Here's how he graduated at the top of Asia's class acts.

Justin Timberlake: Rain got *NSync with this former boy bander, allowing R&B and hip hop to infuse his knee-weakening pop songs. And wow, talk about throwing muscle around! Timberlake's brawny biceps help lift his solo career; Rain's defined arms suggest he can do the same.

+ plus...

Usher: Rain has almost "Caught Up" with Ush in the abs department: the more to glisten sweat off of during live shows, my pretties! A scandal-free version of Michael Jackson, the "Confessional" crooner has dance moves that keep crowds riveted. The hot-stepping Rain is following in his tracks. "Yeah!"

Originally published on January 31, 2006

Credits to NY Daily Times

[Kristtina]

having live showcase in usa,omg,hes lucky guy if he will succseed?
i only can say that Boa(who was nominated as a world(?) star) are a little bit late to have a showcase in usa,lol,so many expetations and nothing...

[ginachan]

Im so proud of Bi!!!!!

Rain is a big favorite among MTV's international audiences, having received the 'triple crown' of 2005 when he was awarded Best Korean Artist honors at all three Asian MTV award shows: the MTV Asia Awards, the MTV CCTV Mandarin Music Honors and the MTV Video Music Awards Japan. His most recent album, "It's Raining," has enjoyed success in Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, China, Singapore, Indonesia and Thailand, having sold more than 1 million copies to date. He also stars in the Korean popular television drama "Full House" and was named Best Actor at the Korean Broadcasting System Awards.

wow!! bi has taken over ASIA and now he might just take over US!!! im soo happy for him
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"I am so excited to see him," says the MSG ticket-holding fan, who collects postcards plastered with images of Rain. "I can't believe he's really coming to New York!"

On why she's devoted, she explains, "He is different from big stars — he seems more kind and polite. I also like his look. His body is well shaped and he's tall. Then there's his smile. His voice. The way he's dressed. Everything!"

Yeah! Rain is different!!! I agree with this girl

[rlyn_xen]

Man.. I wish I get MTV. I hope America accepts Bi well. =)

[2552]

is mtv k only going to be on direct tv??

[boo_its_lisa]

wow i was doing my homework.. BUTT MANN IS THIS HOTT.. RAIN ISSS SOO GOIGN TO MAKE IT.. I JUST HAVE THAT FEELING.. LOL..

[HoiSang]

WOW!

allright, he's doing the k-pop industry proud, woooot!

Bi oppa, fightingggg!

[YEHJIN.]

i KNOW he'll do well in USA. or at least, he'll make his mark, and i don't think he'll be forgotten too easily.

JYP is a genius. even SM couldn't get to the US faster. MUHAHAHA xD

man, every article is always talking about his abs ^^;

[.Blissful` Ecstasy*]

Oh man i jus have this feeling that he is going to make it!

& he sure is going to leave them with a deep impression

[taewoorizip]

RAIN will make it in AMERICA

I have been a foreign fan of RAIN'S since his first single... " Bad Boy "

and he solidified my fandom to him with " How to Avoid the Sunlight "

All he has to do is KEEP JYP, and keep doing what he has been.

JYP has produced some awesome k-pop artists and has produced some hot songs in
AMERICA that are making it.

I couldn't make it to his MSG concert this time, but later on this fall...

I'LL SUPPORT HIM 100%!

[Jamie™]

I think he'll make it big too
I don't like how they compare him w/ usher, JT etc.. but ehh wht do you expect.. =(

[XSE7ENSL0VE]

just amazing.
proud korean. i think he'll make it big.
he already made it big. he'll make it HUGE.

[*rashiDah]

If he learns Eng. well i reckon he will do execptionally well in the U.S; considering he would be the only male asian artist atm/

[lo0say]

are there any other artists who are trying to make it into the American market?

[little mixed girl]

Back when he was just a droplet

lotta bi stuff these days

[J.lee]

^Yup Bi fans are floating these days.(cloud 9)
Thank's for these articles!!!
K-POP Hwaiiting!!!

[stellabella]

I would want nothing more than for Bi to be successful here, but I honestly don't think he'll make it. Not because he wouldnt be good enough- no of course not. But because American people are so set on their own ways and have difficulty accepting new things. This is true. Korean pop culture and American pop culture are very different.