K/DA is a virtual music group; a quartet of animated digital stars that sing infectious, K-pop inspired songs. At first glance, it doesn’t look all that different to a band like Gorillaz. But the all-girl act’s catchy bops and slick music videos disguise an unusual origin: K/DA is a group of characters from League of Legends, and its music was made by a video game developer.
This is the inside story of how the studio behind League of Legends took on the music industry and created a pop sensation.
K/DA has amassed over 600 million views on its official YouTube videos. The group has almost three million monthly listeners on Spotify, has won six awards, and has topped the World Digital Song charts three times. With a certified gold record, a trio of hit singles, and a popular EP to its name, K/DA has been a huge success for Riot Games.
The story of that success starts over a decade ago. Back then, League of Legends was quickly growing into one of the most popular video games in the world. As such, it’s unsurprising that the studio was looking to explore other potential opportunities for the universe and its huge roster of characters. Some of those opportunities led to comics and an upcoming Netflix TV series. But the most unusual direction Riot took was music.
“Most of us are fans of, and passionate about, music,” says Toa Dunn, head of Riot Games Music. “It’s our way to really invest and express ourselves. We take music to not just be a complimentary thing, but we like to lead with it.”
We just asked ourselves “Well, what if they were a band?”
The developer’s earliest moves into the music scene came through finding songs for the League of Legends World Championship tournaments (better known as ‘Worlds’). Each year, Riot collaborates with bands and artists for the competition’s huge opening show. Among the most famous is Imagine Dragons, who debuted the song ‘Warriors’ at Worlds 2014.
But Riot had larger ambitions than just an annual anthem. It wanted to create a “music universe”, where alternate versions of League of Legends characters would become musicians. The seeds for that universe were planted in 2010 with Pentakill, a set of heavy metal-inspired skins for a handful of League of Legends characters. But Riot soon saw an opportunity to go beyond cosmetics.
“Seeing fans gravitate towards Pentakill as a band, we just asked ourselves ‘Well, what if they were a band?’” says Dunn.
And so in 2014 Pentakill was made for real. Aiming to be more than just a marketing tie-in, Riot collaborated with big names from the world of metal to ensure authenticity. Former Masterplan frontman Jørn Lande provided vocals, and was joined by DragonForce’s original singer, ZP Theart. With former Nine Inch Nails member Danny Lohner on production, Riot created an eight-track metal album called Smite & Ignite.
The album exploded. It hit the Billboard Top 40 and took the No. 1 spot on iTunes’ Metal and Rock charts. It was immediately clear that Riot was onto something good. And so in 2017 Riot recorded a second album, Grasp of the Undying, this time working with Motley Crue’s Tommy Lee. And once again, Pentakill hit the top spot on iTunes’ Metal charts.
But Riot had no intention of stopping at two chart-toppers. And so the music team began to look for a new challenge…
South Korea is one of the most important countries for Riot. It is home to one of the largest League of Legends player bases, as well as the most successful team in the game’s professional scene. Basically, League of Legends and Korea are a perfect match. But Korean pop is also one of the fastest growing music genres on the planet, expanding well beyond its birth nation and into the West. This gradual rise of K-pop in the Western consciousness had worked its way into the personal playlists of staff at Riot Games.
“We were hitting a time in collective pop culture consciousness that K-pop was just about at the tip of everyone’s tongue,” says Patrick Morales, Principal Creative Director at Riot Games Music. “By 2018 Psy’s Gangnam Style was a thing that was a global phenomenon. BTS, which were previously only in Korea, had started to pierce through the veil of mainstream pop culture consciousness.
“It was around that time that we thought, ‘You know what? I think we do have something really cool to say here, something that we can add to the conversation in pop music’,” he adds.
With K-pop on everyone’s minds, the Riot Games Music team set to work on finding the sound they wanted to work with for their next project. And so began the process of creating the next League of Legends virtual band; an all-girl pop group called K/DA.
“When we first started, we were trying to figure out what was a K/DA sound,” Morales recalls. “When we sat down with our composer, Sebastian [Najand], I think the thing that we were all really attracted to was the idea that if we had to really describe a pop sound that we were going for, it would come down to two words: hard-hitting and fun.”
Najand, who was finding inspiration in acts such as 4Minute and Skrillex at the time, had his own idea for what would become K/DA’s debut track. “This kind of non-stop propulsion throughout the entire song is something we wanted,” he says. “Something really intense, really driving, nothing downtempo.”
But the song was just one part of the project. The band needed members. Like with Pentakill, the journey to finding K/DA’s four singers began with a cosmetic. Riot had created a popstar skin for the character Ahri a few years previously. Inspired by this, Riot positioned Ahri as the leader of the group, and built the rest of the lineup around her.
“A lot of these characters are really inspired by their personalities, their backstories of who they are as champions within League of Legends,” explains Morales. “But we were able to find these really neat parallels to how we could express that into reality as actual credible pop star tropes. And I think that’s what helped make the magic of K/DA happen.”
I think we do have something really cool to say here, something that we can add to the conversation in pop music.
Ahri was joined by Akali, Evelynn, and Kai’sa to complete the all-women group. Within the game world of Runeterra, the four are unlikely allies. However, as a K-pop group, the roster makes sense.
“When you look at K/DA it does really have the K-pop feel,” observes Hye Jin Lee, Ph.D., Clinical Assistant Professor of Communication at University of Southern California. Lee specialises in K-pop, and notes a number of authentic elements in K/DA’s design.
“We see that clearly Ahri is the visual,” Lee notes. “She’s the leader because she’s the one who formed the group. In K-pop there’s always a visual member. And then we see Akali, who is the main rapper, and then Evelynn as the diva, the main vocalist. Then Kai’Sa is the main dancer. They all have a role and responsibility they take as a group. They compliment each other and bring the best results. That’s what K-pop is about, combining members to bring the best results, and in that sense I think K/DA is very K-pop like.”
Authenticity was important to Riot. While K/DA could never be a ‘true’ K-pop band due to its development in America, it needed to capture the essence of that music scene. “That was a big thing in my head as the song was being developed, what will K-pop fans think of it?” Najand recalls. “Will it stand up to all the songs that I’ve liked and things like that?”
It was vital that K/DA’s first single sounded as authentic as possible, because it was the song that would elevate them from a group of video game characters to genuine pop stars.
K/DA’s debut track was Pop/Stars, an infectious and energetic single that weaves between fierce verses, melodic bridges, and an anthemic chorus.
“None of the song writers had experience working in the K-pop industry, but it worked,” says Lee. “And here’s why: K-pop includes a lot of different forms of music. There are a lot of different genres that are mashed in. There’s hip-hop, R&B, rap, house, EDM. You name it, you’ll find it in K-pop. Music wise, anything can be K-pop, it’s just how it’s delivered.”
“We definitely wanted the fusion,” says Najand. “Because a lot of K-pop bands also have a rapping section, they have a singing section, and all that. So, we definitely wanted to do that. We also wanted to have a multilingual approach, Korean and English in this case.”
With a mix of Korean and English vocals, Riot needed to pull together appropriate artists from the worlds of Western pop and K-pop to bring K/DA to life. A careful search brought together the ideal line-up; the Korean lyrics would be performed by Soyeon and Miyeon, two members of the hit K-pop band (G)I-dle. For English vocals, Riot approached American artists Madison Beer and Jaira Burns.
Riot had previously discussed the potential of a music project with Beer. “We were planning to do something for I would say two years,” she recalls. “And then K/DA came as an idea and it felt really perfect and authentic, and the best call to action. The second that the idea was even brought up, we all were like, ‘Yeah, that’s what we should be doing.'”
Burns was the last to join the project. “I remember they had Madison picked out already,” she says. “They had the two (G)I-dle girls picked out already, and then they were looking for the last person. So they hit [record label] Interscope… ‘Do you guys have anybody that you think might work for this?’ And so, [Interscope] pitched my name.”
By this time, Riot’s music team had put together a version of Pop/Stars that was nearly ready to go into the studio with. When presented with the track, Beer was surprised. Her brother was a big fan of League of Legends, and the single was not the song she expected to be made for that game.
“I definitely thought it was going to be a little more soundtrack sounding,” says Beer. “Something that would play in the background when people are playing the game. But then it’s this super bad-ass song that’s empowering and has this awesome message. It was definitely not what I expected, in the best way.”
With the group assembled, Riot set to work recording the track. Madison Beer and Jaira Burns provided the vocals for Evelynn and Kai’Sa, while Soyeon and Miyeon brought Ahri and Akali to life. Each artist had their own way that they approached this character work; either staying true to their own style, or getting lost in a new personality.
It’s this super bad-ass song that’s empowering and has this awesome message.
“I pretty much just try to bring as much authentic authenticity of myself as possible,” says Burns. “I was very open with Riot about it. But they really were dope as hell and let me just go off and sing it how I wanted to. So I really just brought my raspy edginess to it and tried to be as Jaira as possible on it.”
Beer had an alternative approach. “I threw myself out the window and I was like, ‘Okay, while we’re recording, you’re Evelynn. Dial that in’,” she says. “It was something I had never done before, I had never played a character in a song. So it was really fun experimenting with my vocals and getting into this more evil, sexy tone.”
Together, the combination of English and Korean voices created the core of the K/DA sound. It was something that wasn’t exactly pure K-Pop, but it made sense to Riot.
“I think before K/DA, most people wouldn’t imagine (G)I-dle next to Madison Beer, next to Jaira Burns,” says Dunn. “You just don’t really see that happen much, but it made sense here when you really thought about it. There’s this kind of diversity and globalness to it. I think that’s what helps elevate it to where people can connect to it, whether you are from the K-pop world or if you are from the pop world.”
Riot had put together what it saw as the perfect group and a killer track for K/DA, but that was just the first steps of the band’s planned debut. Pop/Stars would be accompanied by an animated music video that would help establish the tone of the band. Despite being League of Legends characters, K/DA does not exist in the game’s world of Runeterra, and so it was important that the video anchored them in a credible reality.
“Looking at pop music, artists often tap into this element of fantasy to elevate the aesthetic and storytelling of their art,” Morales explains. “It’s what gives musicians this mythic quality. It makes them feel mysterious, special, and timeless. K/DA is unique in the sense that we already come from a place of fantasy. These are characters from a game, these are ninjas, demons, assassins. So where do you go there?
“The answer was actually pretty simple,” he reveals. “You go the other direction, you find ways to root them in reality, you find ways to make them feel believable as an actual pop group. So that was the big opportunity for us, where we could re-contextualize what people would normally expect as characters of a video game, now as musicians in our world. That was the unique direction that we decided to take.”
With this idea in mind, the music video features K/DA’s larger-than-life members singing in humdrum urban environments. Ahri relaxes in a laundromat, while Akali raps on a NYC-style subway train. For League of Legends fans, it would be clear that we’re not in Runeterra anymore.
The artists, the song, and the music video were the first three components of K/DA’s debut. The last piece of the puzzle, though, had to be something special. The first reveal of the group had to be huge. It had to be unforgettable. Luckily, Riot had just the thing.
“We wanted them to perform at Worlds,” Dunn recalls. “The year before, we had landed an AR dragon in the middle of the stadium. And so we’re like, ‘Okay, with that technology, could we have a band perform.’”
The live performance would feature the real vocalists performing on a stadium stage in front of a huge audience. For anyone watching on the livestream, though, CGI versions of K/DA would also be performing side-by-side with their human counterparts.
“It’s pretty strange performing with someone who’s not physically there,” says Beer. “But you know that everyone who’s watching at home can see them. And obviously, we were really thoroughly prepared for that. We had their markings on the stage where we knew they were going to spawn up and whatnot.”
The show itself was a huge milestone for the real people behind K/DA. “It was definitely a moment where I felt it just all meshed and became real,” Burns says.
“It was really awesome seeing everyone’s faces light up in the crowd,” recalls Beer. “It was an honor and it was really fulfilling.”
Pop/Stars was revealed to the world on November 2, 2018 at the League of Legends World Championships. It immediately went viral, with the music video racking up 100 million views in just one month. The single topped Billboard’s World Digital Song Sales, made it to #5 on the Apple Pop Music charts, and hit #1 on Apple’s K-Pop charts. K/DA was a success.
But that was just the beginning. Riot wanted more.
“The big question we had was, ‘Okay, how are we going to follow up on Pop/Stars?’” says Najand. “‘How are we going to make it as cool and hopefully liked by people, but not the same?’ Because we could do another Pop/Stars, but we didn’t want it to just feel like the same song over again. And also, we wanted to do more songs than just one.”
The answer to this question was to create All Out, a five-track EP that featured songs focusing on each member of K/DA.
“We wanted All Out to be ‘They’re here’,” Dunn explains. “It wasn’t a one time, one viral moment of Pop/Stars. We wanted fans to be able to dive deeper into their personalities. They’re K/DA, but there’s also members of K/DA.”
“Each member was basically the creative producer/director of each song and the music video,” he adds. “So if you were like, ‘Oh, who is Evelynn?’ Listen to her song, listen to the words. You start to see how she sees the world, and potentially how the world sees her.”
We wanted to do something a little bit more grand sounding.
At the centre of this EP would be a brand new anthem. “We knew we wanted the big single that was going to be performed live, that would be the follow-up to Pop/Stars,” says Najand.
That track would be called More, and demonstrate a new approach to K/DA’s sound. “We wanted to do something a little bit more grand sounding,” says Najand. “Pop/Stars is very fast. You’re kind of sprinting. We wanted More to be slightly more laid back.”
To further explore the group’s potential, Riot decided to work with a variety of new people alongside the existing K/DA artists. Alternative vocalists were brought in for some tracks, including members of the K-pop group Twice. A new character, Seraphine, was added to the group as a guest vocalist on More, voiced by Chinese singer Lexie Liu. Riot also collaborated with a songwriter who had already made a significant mark in the world of K-pop: Rebecca Johnson. Better known as Bekuh Boom, she has written for Blackpink, one of Korea’s most recognizable pop groups, among others. She co-wrote all five of the tracks on All Out.
“So with Bekuh, what was cool is she has this different attitude to her delivery and rap that we wanted to explore,” Najand explains. “That’s kind of the big thing that we wanted, that kind of extra attitude, especially with The Baddest and all the other raps. We wanted that to really be at the forefront of the experience.”
“Although Rebecca Johnson is not a K-pop artist and she’s not Korean, because of her participation and work in a lot of K-pop songs I do feel a lot of K-pop influence in All Out,” says Lee. “All the songs that involve (G)I-dle and Twice definitely have a K-pop feel.”
All Out released in 2020. Its two singles – The Baddest and More – both hit number one on the Billboard World Digital Song Sales, and the EP itself hit number one on Billboard’s US Heatseekers Album chart. It has been streamed millions of times on Spotify. Once again, K/DA had found success.
And so that leaves one question. What next?
“With K/DA, a lot of people have been talking about if this is going to be the future of music?” says Lee. “Are we going to see more virtual groups?”
“For me, what we need to watch out for is how a lot of K-pop companies are starting to invest in gaming, and how gaming companies have started to invest in K-pop,” Lee adds, pointing to MMO publisher NCSoft’s creation of Universe, a “K-pop platform” where the fandom can unite and watch virtual concerts.
As for Riot, K/DA has opened the door to a whole new audience. “After we saw the success of [K/DA], we decided to run some life studies,” says Morales. “Who was really watching this, where were all these views coming from, where’s the conversation starting, as far as how these characters have really accumulated traction in mainstream consciousness?
“What we found was that out of all the people that interacted with K/DA in some fashion, whether that was making fan art, watching the video, talking about it on social media, a good half of them had never even played League of Legends,” he reveals.
Music becomes a really interesting platform to tell a story.
Riot continues to see value in its virtual bands and the reach they have beyond League of Legends. Since starting K/DA, the studio has set up a third band: True Damage, a hip-hop group featuring Becky G. And so the developer’s musical universe continues to grow and evolve.
“Our team is really starting to focus on what is the future of our music universe,” says Dunn. “Whether it’s Pentakill, whether it’s True Damage, K/DA, DJ Sona. We have a lot of these compelling bands or artists in these different genres. There’s that storytelling element to it, too. Do they collide? Do they come together like you saw with Seraphine and K/DA? It becomes a really interesting platform to tell a story.”
“I guess offering something new every time is what we were trying to do,” says Najand. “A lot of K-pop bands have their evolution over time, their sound kind of grows, and so we probably want something similar where someone can look back at K/DA’s older songs and see a path, and a story within all that.”
Virtual groups may have put Riot on the musical map, but that’s not the only aspect of the industry that the developer wants to innovate in. Riot’s latest creation is Sessions; a collection of copyright-free music that creatives such as streamers and YouTubers can use for no cost.
“It can be hard to be a content creator at times,” recognises Dunn. “And so, we want to help make that easier by providing what we believe to be quality music. Music that we think they’re going to love to listen to, but not have to worry about certain things.”
And beyond Sessions… well, not even Riot knows yet. At least, it won’t say just yet. But the team does know that music will continue to be important. That could potentially mean growing beyond League of Legends and working with the characters of Valorant, Riot’s first-person shooter.
“We’re going to continue to look at opportunities for music around Valorant,” says Dunn. “I think music is just core to us here at Riot. I’d be surprised if we did anything and music wasn’t really thought of as a part of that experience. We’re going to continue to do that with pretty much everything, I would assume.”
From a heavy metal-inspired character skin to a collection of license-free music designed for content creators, Riot’s music story has followed a surprising and varied path. K/DA is the slick and glitzy star of this tale, and it demonstrates that the company sees music as more than just a marketing gimmick. Through the group’s success, Riot has found a new creative playground in which to experiment and evolve. If this lightning can be re-bottled remains to be seen, but one thing is clear: Riot isn’t just a video games developer now. It’s something more.
Matt Purslow is IGN’s UK News and Entertainment Writer. Simon Cardy is IGN’s UK Video Producer. Additional reporting by Mike Mamon, IGN’s Syndication and Digital Strategist.