Psy signs with Justin Bieber's manager Scooter Braun - Los Angeles Times
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Psy signs with Justin Bieber’s manager Scooter Braun

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The K-pop singer Psy has had no trouble dominating the Internet (and Dodger Stadium) with his absurdist ode to to the high life, “Gangnam Style.” But he’s about to become even more inescapable if Justin Bieber’s manager has a say.

The Hollywood Reporter notes that the singer born Park Jae-Sang has signed a deal with Scooter Braun, the young impresario and recent New Yorker darling who ushered Biebs and Carly Rae Jepsen into the teenpop troposphere. The deal puts Psy on Braun’s Universal imprint Schoolboy Records, and Braun has high hopes for the arrangement.

In a short introductory video (whose memes-colliding power could vaporize planets), Braun said that “We’ve come to an agreement to make some history together. [To] be the first Korean artist to break a big record in the United States.”

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They’ll have some competition on that front, as K-pop peers Girls Generation and 2NE1 are racing to tour the U.S. and release an English-language breakthrough, and the latter group has will.i.am in its corner.

But Psy might have cracked the code already. “Gangnam Style,” a loving LMFAO-worthy parody of life in Seoul’s capital for conspicuous consumption, is nearing 100 million views despite its almost entirely Korean lyrics.

Psy will make his in-the-flesh debut for most of America at Thursday’s MTV VMA Awards, where he’ll appear onstage. Braun and Psy’s introductory video ends, naturally, with the two downing shots of the Korean liquor soju in a celebratory toast. It might be the first of many if America takes a shine to the Gangnam life.

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