Anderson .Paak’s ‘K-Pops!’ is a celebration of Korean and Black cultures

Rendy Jones: How did your musician experience as an artist influence your directing sensibilities?
Anderson .Paak: Doing music videos helped. It was important for me to get a reel under my belt. Before making this, I was like, “I'm going to at least write/direct 10-15 music videos. I'll do it for other artists and myself. I want to get experience being on set, trying to learn the language, and figuring out what kind of style I want.”

I didn't know anything about writing a script. Thank god they got me with a co-writer, Khaila Amazan, who taught me about structure. What I realized was that I have an opportunity to make a movie from the point of view and the style of a musician. I started leaning into, “Oh, I could make this movie similar to the way I make an album.” I'm going to be learning as I go. I'm still learning. I got my *ss kicked. Would I do it again? Yes. I can't wait to do it again.

RJ: How was it for you to combine all these musical styles—hip-hop/R&B, K-pop—under one feature? At TIFF you described to your son, “You know about this BTS, but what do you know about this BET?”
AP: That was the logline of the movie. The idea was trying to show how we could bridge two cultures. Show how a genre is pulling from a well of Black music. And if you do the history on it, you see it's there. I had an opportunity to shed light on that in a way that I felt like could still be funny, play on satire, and involve everyone. Then after, we can create something innovative and take it to the next level. I wanted to unite. It's an opportunity to show where it comes from because you got to know where it comes from in order to know where you're going. You got to take care of and respect the art, and it'll take care of and respect you. I'm a big music nerd, so that's how it goes with me. The least I can do is pass that down to my son. 

It was amazing that I was able to get Earth, Wind, and Fire, Kirk Franklin, Jay Park, Jessi, and  Vernon. Then build this fictional show, Wildcard. That was our sandlot. I feel like there’s no movie that’s done this. I'm honored to tell this unique story and have the platform to do it.

"K-Pops!" follows BJ (Anderson .Paak, right) as he meets his son Tae (Soul Rasheed, center) for the first time, and reunites with his ex-girlfriend, Yeji (Jee Young Han).

Courtesy of Aura Entertainment

RJ: I read that your son was going through puberty during production. Did that give you any challenges, your son growing up while doing this movie?
AP: Even before we got on set, man, he was getting bigger. The idea started when he was 8. By the time we were shooting, he was 11. He was like, “I don't like K-pop no more. I like Slipknot.” So I'm like, “Oh, snap. I mean, contractually, son, we got to do this, so let's start strong, finish strong.” I wanted to make sure this is something that he'd be proud of when he was in his teens, 20s, 30s. It was something that he would look back like, “Man, that was so fun. I got to do that in this little capsule.”

His voice was changing on set. We got to almost a six-month break from the initial shooting to when we got to shoot in Korea. He went from 11 to 12. And if you look at the film, he goes bigger, a little slightly smaller. We had to trick it. We had to go into ADR sometimes because his voice was deeper. He was a great actor, so he made it happen. But that was definitely a challenge that we got through. If we would've waited any longer, ha, now he looks like a grown-*ss man.

RJ: Tell me about directing the idol sequences with Wildcard and giving this reality TV competition such a cinematic flair.
AP: We had to study up. My co-writer, Khaila, who was a big K-pop fan of all the shows and the culture, took me to K-pop 101. We studied shows like Show Me the Money and Produce 101. We saw that these are big-scale productions. There are different ways that they're moving the camera and different ways that they're dancing. The music needs to be structured for this kind of choreography. I had never done any of that and I wanted it to be as authentic as possible.

My director of photography Edward J. Pei was really stoked to do a musical. He was like, “We need the crane, we need this and that.” My production designer (Bradley Rubin) was amazing with how he built the set and made it larger than life with the lighting and the costuming. My team brought it to life. They were looking at me a couple times with the budget like, “You want to do what?” But I was like, “This is what it is. We got to make sure it's authentic and true to form.” To learn the K-pop structure and have my twist on it, was a lot of fun.