From Indian K-pop idols to Swedish songwriters, South Korea's music industry is now a hotbed of global talent - a smart strategy as it aims for world domination.
K-pop bands have long included non-Koreans: Blackpink's Lisa is Thai, Japan and China are well represented, and Korean-American singers have topped the the South's charts.
But after megastars like Psy and BTS took K-pop global, the South Korean entertainment agencies behind almost all the popular groups are recruiting further afield.
DR Music's girl group Blackswan only has two Koreans in its six-strong line-up, and last month added the industry's first Indian "idol," who joins Brazilian and Senegalese members.
In the United States a Korean-American K-pop singer, AleXa, recently won NBC's American Song Contest, the US version of Eurovision. Although she sang in English her training in Seoul made her stand out.
NBC staff said they had "never worked with an artist who could find a camera on stage faster," said Angelina Foss, creative director at South Korea's ZB Label.
By the end of filming, other contestants were asking AleXa for tips, Foss says, adding that it was "just part of the training."
With comprehensive training programs covering everything from acting and etiquette to stunt coordination, K-pop artists make some Western pop stars look like they are not even trying.
Recruited in open castings or found through online audition tapes, South Korea's entertainment agencies identify raw talent and then go to work.
At ZB Label, part of industry powerhouse Zanybros that has produced thousands of K-pop music videos, Foss says the bosses are always thinking "What's the next step in K-pop?"
They signed AleXa as they saw in her the "full package" and her potential to appeal to K-pop's growing global fandom.
AleXa has studied dance since two but says the training regime was still hard.
"I trained every day of the week," says AleXa, who did years of competitive cheerleading while growing up in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
"I had weekly evaluations, which is a very big thing in the K-pop industry," she adds, explaining that trainees perform for company staff to assess their progress.
After "months and months and months" of work her bosses decided she was ready to "debut" as a fully fledged star.
In K-pop machinery the concept of a debut is very important, and obsessive detail is put into styling, staging and cinematography.
"Concept and execution are very, very critical," says AleXa, whose songs are written in Sweden but produced in Seoul with a US audience but global YouTube views in mind.
K-pop recruiters are fanning out across the world, with BTS's agency Hybe hosting auditions in cities including London, Bangkok, Sydney and Tokyo, though global talent is also flocking to South Korea.
Iyanu Anderson, 24, discovered K-pop as a teenager in Britain where she studied Korean at university before moving to Seoul, now working as a dancer, actress and model.
"I'd love to be trained," says Anderson, who has appeared in a Samsung commercial with BTS and performed as a backing dancer at their three March concerts in Seoul.
"But to debut as an artist, I'm not sure," she add, citing the huge pressure, scrutiny and workload facing K-pop idols.
Even as a backup dancer "there is a certain amount of pressure, just because when we're shooting a commercial, they strive for perfection. Sometimes we're shooting for hours and hours and one thing is out of line. Then it's a whole new setup."
It is "quite difficult" for overseas performers to adapt to the hard-driving K-pop system, says Michelle Cho, assistant professor at the University of Toronto.
But the industry itself is being forced to adapt to draw top talent from across the globe, she explains. K-pop managers are "paying attention to pop cultural or youth cultural aesthetics and styles in lots of different places."
If they manage to successfully diversify casting and train new types of stars, "that can only be a good thing" for the industry and its global prospects, she says.
