[Source: AP]

Lee Soo Man resisted the title at first.

“King of K-pop” sounded too brash, too nightclub-esque — like something you’d see on a neon sign in Itaewon, a nightlife neighborhood in the South Korean capital Seoul once popular with U.S. soldiers and foreign visitors.

“I asked them, ‘Couldn’t it be Father of K-pop?’” the 73-year-old recalled during a recent interview with The Associated Press.

He was discussing the title of Amazon Prime’s documentary about his career. The producers insisted the bolder moniker would resonate better with American audiences. After some back-and-forth, Lee relented. “I had to follow their decision.”

The compromise speaks to Lee’s pragmatic approach to breaking South Korean acts into the American mainstream — a three-decade quest that often required him to bend but never break his vision.

Now, as the founder of SM Entertainment and widely credited as the architect of K-pop’s global expansion, Lee will be inducted into the Asian Hall of Fame on Saturday alongside basketball legend Yao Ming, Olympic figure skater Michelle Kwan, and rock icon Yoshiki, among others.

Lee remains a prominent but controversial figure in K-pop history.

His label pioneered the industry’s intensive training system, recruiting performers as young as elementary school age and putting them through years of rigorous preparation.

Some of his artists have challenged their contracts as unfair, sparking broader debates about industry practices.

The recognition arrives as Lee reemerges into the spotlight after a contentious, high-profile departure from the agency he founded in 1995 — a management battle that included a public feud with his nephew-in-law and a bidding war over his shares.

He’s been keeping busy since, debuting a new band, A2O MAY, in both China and the U.S. He’s also investing in a boutique Chinese firm’s high-tech production technologies.

Born in South Korea, Lee studied computer engineering in the U.S. for his master’s degree.

That technical background would later inform his approach to everything from visualization and cutting-edge production technologies — he said he’s been rewatching “The Matrix” to revisit filming techniques — to pioneering elaborate “worldviews” and virtual avatars for his K-pop bands.

For Lee, the Hall of Fame honor “confirms that K-pop has become a genre that the mainstream is now paying attention to” — an acceptance that came after costly lessons and years of trial and error.

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