By Tae Hong

K-pop lovers, meet Dean. Chances are, you have seen his name — stylized as DΞΔN — attached to a flow of collaborative singles coming out of South Korea in the last two months.

You gave some of it a try, and you could swear, if this R&B crooner weren’t singing in Korean, you’d have mistaken the songs as those uploaded by an American pop artist.

Not quite — the 23-year-old (whose Korean name is Kwon Hyuk) was born and raised in Korea. As Koreans do, Dean calls his sound his own “color.” That’s not just a concept — it’s the culmination of the environment that raised him and the culture he enjoys, the culture that influenced him. It includes his days producing idol tunes (try EXO and VIXX, for two) from America, years after finding interest in music through R&B and hip-hop.

And if he is ready for one thing, it’s to convince the scene that it’s time for its musicians to take the reins as mainstream tastemakers, not followers.

Last month, when Korean web behemoth Naver posted a spotlight of the up-and-coming singer on its music site, the comments flooding in from K-Netizens were diverse. Some thought he had steeped himself too deep in Western pop music. Some called him the next answer to the increasingly trendy R&B genre. Many sang praise.

“I’m someone who’s of the opinion that my role with my music ends with my creation of it,” Dean said. “Everything else after that is up to the listeners. So to hear that I’ve been receiving a positive response, for that I’m very thankful.”

“I Love It,” his first Korean Korean release last month featuring Dok2, overseen in part by American producer B.A.M. (Chris Brown, Ne-Yo), garnered positive responses before he followed up with “Pour Up,” featuring Block B rapper Zico and taken on by Count Justice (Chris Brown’s “New Flame”).

A short background on the singer: He joined a Korean music production company-turned-agency with a Los Angeles office, Joombas, when he turned 20 years old. EXO may not have cried out for their “Black Pearl,” and VIXX may never have returned to fans in 2013 with “Voodoo Doll,” if it hadn’t been for the young songwriter. Since then, he’s rung in other high-profile collaborations, many of the stateside kind, including Mila J and Anderson Paak.

Before Korea, he stepped into the international market by dropping the Eric Bellinger collab “I’m Not Sorry” with Universal Records. “Put My Hands On You” with Paak followed.

Word of a Korean singer making undeniably “American” pop was enough to pique the interests of music lovers all the way home in Korea, helped, of course, by social media chatter. He also succeeded in catching the attention of Korean musicians, among them chronic chart-topper Junggigo, who personally contacted the singer.

“I didn’t expect such a big reaction from Korea,” Dean said. “When we were working on my [English] songs, we had only been thinking of the American market. I was so thankful to Korea.”

How long had he been waiting for that moment, to finally be able to stand on stage as a performer?

“I’ve researched the ins and outs of K-pop and its melodic qualities since I was young,” he said. “I wanted to become a singer when I was 20 and began writing music. It was a dream in a corner of my heart, that I could become an artist.”

He’s already making waves by working with a crew of red-hot artists, from the aforementioned Dok2 and Zico to Zion.T, Dynamic Duo and Crush, whom he met through contacts made during his producing days.

Fresh tracks carrying Dean’s voice include Dynamic Duo’s “How Are You Lately?”, a track on the hip-hop giant’s newest album, and Junggigo’s “274.”

It’s his immediate history as a young producer, and one whose taste lent to the making of idols at that, that lends to his perspective on the industry he faces.

His K-pop vision doesn’t involve so much an introduction of a “western” urban palette as much as it has to do with taking on the task of changing what it is to be “K-pop mainstream.”

In a handful of interviews, he pointed to acting icon James Dean as the inspiration behind his chosen moniker. That rebellious image appealed to him, he has said. And, when asked to describe himself as a musician, he uses the word “unpredictable.”

“I want to share with everyone the emotions, influences and culture I felt as Dean, the person, until now,” he said. “The K-pop industry is diverse and ever-changing, to be sure. Within that, I think I gained a lot of insight by working behind the scenes that other singers may not have had the chance to know. But what’s important is not just to change following how the industry is changing, but to figure out how to maintain my own artistic sound in entering this market.”

“A lot of [Korean] musicians talk about mainstream appeal and of altering their music to fit what the masses want, but I get the feeling that not enough of them talk about figuring out how to make their own sounds the mainstream,” he said. “I think there will come a time [in K-pop] when that will be important for artists to do.”

That includes songwriting, which the singer calls more than a form of expression — it’s a form of play, and he plans to keep on writing. He makes little discerning between K-pop and pop in taking on projects with artists.

“If I can feel something from their music and find harmony between their color and mine, then I want to work with them,” he said.

Joombas CEO Shin Hyuk, the producer who took Dean under his wing as a composer, said in a recent Reddit AMA that the singer would produce a track on EXO’s next album.

“K-pop doesn’t need to change,” Dean said. “I think, instead, there’s a need for people who are preparing to make music as artists to figure out their own values and philosophies. Then the market will change along with them.”

Some have taken his Korean debut to mean that he’s given up on entering the American market, he said.

“There’s a definite difference in the way my career will play out in America and in Korea, and I’m planning to create more music to show off my color in both places,” he said.

Check out Dean’s two Korean singles, “Pour Up” and “I Love It,” below: