AleXa Brings the Heat to ‘American Song Contest’ with K-Pop Song “Wonderland”

There’s no way to avoid it (and why would you want to?), K-pop music is taking off.

Helping to bring the genre to mainstream music in the United States is Oklahoma-born singer and dancer AleXa. She was born to a South Korean mother and an American father in Tulsa where she discovered K-pop in the late 2000s. As a K-pop artist, she has appeared on reality competitions Rising Legends and Produce 48. Now, AleXa has joined the ranks of competitors on the American Song Contest as she chases after the title of Best Original Song.

“My manager is Swedish, so when we received the invitation to audition [for ‘American Song Contest’], we thought, ‘Yes, this is iconic.’ It’s literally Eurovision, but now we’re spreading it to America. It was just a wonderful opportunity and I was so excited to take it,” AleXa told Billboard.

For her debut performance on the show, AleXa performed the catchy song “Wonderland.”

“Wonderland” was written by songwriters Albin Nordqvist, Andreas Carlsson, Bekuh Boom, Ellen Berg, and Moa (Cazzie Opeia) Carlebecker.

“It helped that I had worked with Cazzi,” AleXa said. “Then all of these wonderful creatives came together and the song was presented to us. I fell in love with it immediately and we knew we had to go with that song.”

“Being close to both the Swedish and Korean K-Pop community, I found the song after listening to hundreds of submissions from my personal network,” Carlsson told Billboard. “As AleXa could possibly be the first American K-Pop sensation, the song had to appeal to American audiences without alienating her Korean fans. There is a specific formula to K-Pop that must be considered when creating the song. I eventually ended up as a co-writer on the song as it had to be a bit more westernized. Then writer Bekuh Boom came into the mix with some brilliant topline ideas and everyone felt we had something special. Sometimes it takes a lot of chefs to serve up something extraordinary.”

Listen to “Wonderland” below.

Photo by: Trae Patton/NBC