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SM Entertainment’s Co-CEO, Lee Sung-soo posted a video on YouTube allegedly exposing the company founder Lee Soo-man’s mismanagement, including claims about its rookie group aespa.
On February 16, the co-CEO, who is also the founder’s nephew-in-law, uploaded a video titled "SM Entertainment CEO Lee Sung Soo’s Statement Presentation Part 1." In the 28-minute long video, he talked about the company’s current shareholder dispute, alleged mismanagement, greed, and more.
Specifically, Lee Sung-soo revealed that it was the founder Lee Soo-man’s idea to change the music direction by writing songs on sustainability and climate change. He claimed that he was ordered to give aespa, the company’s youngest group that broke into the industry with its AI conceptual Kwangya world, songs about “planting trees.”
According to the co-CEO, the founder gave the teams words such as “greenism” and “just sustainability” to include in the lyrics. He also revealed that the artificiality of the songs made aespa’s members choke up.
SM Entertainment’s co-CEO Lee Sung-soo says Lee Soo-man’s change of music direction for aespa upset the members
The SM-Entertainment-versus-its-founder dispute has become the K-pop world’s very own Game of Thrones. As per reports, the company initially aligned with Kakao to become major stakeholders. Lee Soo-man was then reported to have sued the co-CEOs, later joining hands with HYBE to sell his shares, in turn making HYBE the largest shareholder of SM Entertainment.
In this very legal and very public dispute, one of the company’s co-CEO, Lee Sung-soo, released a video making several allegations against the founder of SM Entertainment. One of the allegations claimed that he ordered a change in aespa’s music direction. Shifting their focus from powerful songs curated for their overarching concept, the girls were ordered to sing a song on climate change and sustainability.
As per translation via Koreaboo:
“Lee Soo-man had ordered the AR Team and Yoo Young-jin to reflect planting trees and sustainability in songs. Even aespa, who’s conceptual world has been spectacular, had been ordered to sing songs with lyrics about planting trees.”
He added:
“Parts of the lyrics include 'just sustainability,' 'lowering the degree by even one,' 'co-existence,' and 'greenism.' These words that have no relation to K-pop at all appeared in the lyrics here and there. The early part of the song even contained “planting trees.” The aespa members were so upset they even got choked up [with tears].
Meanwhile, other things that the co-CEO accused Lee Soo-man of comprised compelling people to campaign about his importance in the company, making the company sign a consultancy deal for his own interests, and delaying albums that were scheduled for February and March release.
Despite the legal disputes, many SM artists have confirmed their plans for a comeback. These include SHINee’s Onew making a solo comeback after nearly a year on March 6 and EXO’s Kai doing the same in mid-March. With their last release in July 2022, the agency is yet to announce any comeback plans for aespa.
