Japan’s dance and vocal group KID PHENOMENON performed at SXSW 2026, held in Austin, Texas, from March 12 to 18. With a mission to challenge the assumption that today’s best boy bands are in K-pop, the seven members delivered performances that electrified local music fans and came away with a strong sense of validation. Still riding the high of their performances, the group sat down with Billboard Japan to chat about their takeaways from the experience.
What’s going through your minds now that you’ve finished your SXSW 2026 performance?
Kensuke Sorematsu: This was our first time performing in the States, so honestly, I was nervous about whether we’d get the crowd going. We put a lot of thought into how to get people who didn’t know KID PHENOMENON to have a good time. In the end, it wasn’t just our fans who had a great time, but people who were simply there for the music enjoyed it too, and that made me incredibly happy. What moved me most was hearing people overseas singing our songs along with us. It made me really glad that we’d faced this challenge head-on.
How did you feel when you found out you’d be performing at SXSW 2026?
Shunnosuke Sato: I was just stunned that we’d get to represent Japan at an event of that global scale. But the seven of us are the kind of people who are genuinely driven to take on new challenges, so we were excited imagining how far we could push ourselves at an event that draws artists from all over the world, and how we could make our mark. We basically build our own show flow and setlist, and for this one we created a dance track specifically for it, while also getting involved in song arrangements, transitions, and choreography. It became a 40-minute set that we put our hearts into.
Did you also come up with a concept for the stage?
Kensuke: Since the group’s concept is “TOKYO NEO POP,” we wanted that to come through in the show. For the vocal arrangements, I told Tsubasa and Kota to just do whatever felt right, and they delivered. We built the stage around genuinely enjoying ourselves, including that element of trust.
Rui Suzuki: We’d thoroughly prepared, of course, but since it was our first live show in the U.S., we also made a point of not overthinking things, for better or worse. It was more about trusting in everything we’ve built up and expressing that. We brought our excitement and let it come through in our own way.
How did you spend your time after arriving in Austin?
Soma Kawaguchi: We did a street performance, and so many passersby stopped to watch. People there are just so friendly. They danced with us, and some even joined our cypher circle. It took us by surprise because we’d never experienced anything like that before, but really drove home the feeling that dance and music truly transcend borders and language.
With all of that leading up to the show, there must have been a lot to feel and take away from your performance.
Kohaku Okao: The crowd’s energy was huge, and it fired us up more because we wanted to match it and then some. There were people singing along, and others who weren’t necessarily focused on us but were just feeling the music. You could feel how openly they were enjoying it. The atmosphere was different from what we experience in Japan, and that felt really refreshing.
Kota Yamamoto: Since this was our first time in U.S., we performed with the goal of letting people know who we are. So we spoke in English in between songs and when interacting with the crowd. Being able to communicate properly through words as well as performance meant we could really get our message across, and I think we pulled off an aggressive and powerful performance.
The setlist had a beautiful flow to it. Were there any songs that drew a particularly strong reaction?
Kensuke: Across the whole show, I noticed that the way different songs landed really varied between Japan and the U.S. With “Black Flame,” for example, fans in Japan tend to be drawn into our world and watch intently, whereas in the U.S. a lot of people were soaking in the sound and moving with it. Same with “Underrated” — a lot of people were just naturally moving to the music. Getting to feel that difference was one of the things I took away from this experience. It made me think we need to be flexible about how we build our shows depending on whether we’re at home or abroad.
Were there other things you learned or that inspired you?
Kensuke: We watched Ty Dolla $ign and JayDon perform, and they had this way of reading the audience and building the energy accordingly. It made me feel like we need to be more attuned to that sense of live spontaneity.
Tsubasa Endo: I also came away wanting to hold onto that stance of communicating with everything you’ve got. Because it was our first performance in the States, we put an incredible amount of passion into it, and seeing people respond to that was genuinely moving. I want to keep that as one of the ways to express myself as an artist.
SXSW 2026 seems like it was your first step in taking on the world stage. How would each of you describe the experience?
Shunnosuke: We gained so much from it, and I think it gave KID PHENOMENON real confidence going forward with our live shows. I want us to keep expanding what we’re capable of so that more and more people get to see what we do.
Going forward, what image of KID PHENOMENON do you want to project to the world?
Kohaku: TOKYO NEO POP is our defining concept, so we want to make sure that comes through clearly, while also becoming characters who embody TOKYO NEO POP as people who actually live in Tokyo right now. Another concept of the group is that we’re seven distinct characters, each with different tastes and strengths across genres. Our music spans rock, pop, R&B, and more, so I think that makes it easier to pull off.
Kensuke: When we’re out on the street, people will say, “Are you a K-pop group?” There’s this assumption that Asian boy bands automatically means K-pop, and it’s frustrating . But we can do so many different things, and being a Japanese boy band is something I’m not willing to give up. We want to establish KID PHENOMENON as its own genre and share a message with people everywhere about the beauty of accepting yourself and being who you are. And because that’s our message, we want to stay true to who we are as well. Without letting anything box us in, we want to keep delivering TOKYO NEO POP.
You’ve brought up “TOKYO NEO POP” several times. Can you tell us more about what it means?
Tsubasa: Simply put, it’s about channeling Tokyo’s culture through the filter of KID PHENOMENON. There’s already a term called J-pop, and I think J-pop as a concept exists because so many artists have contributed to it over the years. We see TOKYO NEO POP not as a music genre but as a culture. We want to represent Tokyo, gather together the many different cultures that exist within it, and reinterpret them as “Tokyo culture now.” That’s how we think we can create something new called TOKYO NEO POP.
Last question. What kind of artists do you hope to be within the next five years?
Kensuke: We want to be artists who can play not only in Japan but at overseas festivals like Coachella and Lollapalooza. I’d love for KID PHENOMENON to become established as icons on a global scale, and to make that happen, we’re going to keep moving forward as a group without getting complacent, without being intimidated, and always pushing ourselves to take on new challenges.
–This interview by Azusa Takahashi first appeared on Billboard Japan
