K-pop (Korean: μΌμ΄ν; RR: Keipap; an abbreviation of "Korean popular music") is a form of popular music originating in South Korea. The music genre that the term is used to refer to colloquially emerged in the 1990s as a form of youth subculture, with Korean musicians taking influence from Western dance music, hip-hop, R&B and rock. Today, K-pop commonly refers to the musical output of teen idol acts, chiefly girl groups and boy bands, who emphasize visual appeal and performance. As a pop genre, K-pop is characterized by its melodic quality and cultural hybridity.
K-pop can trace its origins to "rap dance", a fusion of hip-hop, techno and rock popularized by the group Seo Taiji and Boys, whose experimentation helped to modernize South Korea's contemporary music scene in the early 1990s. Their popularity with teenagers incentivized the music industry to focus on this demographic, with Lee Soo-man of SM Entertainment developing the Korean idol system in the late 1990s and creating acts like H.O.T. and S.E.S., which marked the "first generation" of K-pop. By the early 2000s, TVXQ and BoA achieved success in Japan and gained traction for the genre overseas.