By Priscilla Osaje
The winner of 2024 ‘K-pop Festival’ ‘X-mob dancers’, on Saturday in Abuja thrilled fans and music lovers with their splendid dancing performance at the K-pop Hurray Concert Reloaded.
The K-pop Hurray Concert Reloaded, titled: ‘The Stars’ Edition’, featured performances of various dancing group winners of 2023 and 2024 K-pop festival in Lagos Nigeria.
K-pop Hurray Concert Reloaded, organised by Korea cultural Center in Nigeria (KCCN), is a talent show created to give young talented Nigerians the opportunity to showcase their talents and promote Korean K-pop music.
The X-mob crew which comprised of six talented dancers, defeated other dancing groups like `Femmeforce’, ‘B-Stars’ , ‘Tryumphant X’, among others‘ to cart home a cash prize of N100,000, at ‘The Stars’ Edition’.
Mr Raphael Madufor, ecstatic leader of X-mob, said words were not sufficient to express his joy for emerging as winners at the K-pop festival competition, and also winning with such a cash in the concert of ‘Stars’ Edition’.
Madufor said his group was united by passion for the Korea culture, which was why they danced to all kinds of dance such as K-pop, Afrobeat among others.
“We are happy to fit into the Korea general dance, when we decided to give it a go and then emerged as winners at the K-pop festival.
” I feel happy, I feel great, doing the song that made us to emerge as winners in this ‘Stars’ Edition’,” he said.
He urged upcoming dancers to sink into Korea culture, noting that K-pop is a different dance style where you have a blend with dance expression and feeling.
“Sincerely speaking, other general dance can hardly give you such combination of dance as the K-pop.
“With K-pop you should be ready to dance , express and sing at the same time.
“I want to use this opportunity to appreciate my crew for the tireless efforts they put in for us to always be winners,” Madufor said.
Mr Kim Changki, Director KCCN, said the aim of the event was to promote Korean culture, as well as everything regarding Korea in Nigeria.
According to him, KCCN want to introduce K-pop festival every year in Abuja and Lagos to select one team among other teams.
” The K-pop fans in Abuja want to see the K-pop dance team in Abuja for the promotion of K-pop community.
” The K-pop music lovers should try their best in studying Korea culture and belonging to the K-pop community,” he said.
He urged young prospective talented Nigerian singers and dancers to be ambitious in the pursuit of their dreams.
Ms Jennifer Ezeonyeasi, the Cultural Events and Communications Officer of the KCCN, said the event was a reloaded K-pop concert.
According to her, the aim of the reloaded event was to bring together the winners of the K-pop festival competition in Lagos back to Abuja to preform.
“Bringing them together will enable us to be sure of having a close knit community of K-pop performers.
“We do not want a situation where or after they won, then it just end there without bringing the K-pop community together,” she said .
NAN areports that the 2024 singing winner of K-pop performance, Victory Mbagwu won N100,000 after her amazing performance.
Miss Precious Ayeni and two others won cash prizes of N10, 000 each after winning the dance challenge.
The K-pop is known as Korea popular music, which comes in form of popular music originating in South Korea as part of South Korean culture. (NAN)