“K-pop this way! This way for K-pop!” shouts a traffic warden in hi-vis at a group of young Londoners in maid uniforms. There’s roadworks in west London’s White City, and his job is to ferry attendees of Eastern Margins’ Margins United day festival across the intersection and into the 2,800 capacity Exhibition venue on the other side – a job he is executing by, essentially, profiling passersby. I chuckle at the scene and we lock eyes. “Bro, is it even K-pop in there?” he asks me anxiously. “I’m just guessing.” 

To give the traffic warden his credit, it’s a good question. Sure, the third edition of Margins United is to be headlined by Korean popstar Yves, followed up with a closing performance from J-pop fivepiece F5ve. But this is certainly not your average idol gig. 

You see, since its inception in 2018, Asian diasporic music label Eastern Margins has positioned itself at the crossroads between multiple musical subcurrents emanating from the east. And, over the last two years, these subcurrents have started to subsume not just K-pop’s often twee, sanitised aesthetics, but Asian pop music as a whole.

Take Yves who, since breaking off from Korean girl group Loona, has begun to dive deeper into experimental, hyperpop sonics (a scene which, if underscores’ previous life as a K-pop YouTuber is anything to go off, Korea itself helped mold). Or f5ve, whose recent collaboration with Mechatok points to a strange convergence between J-pop’s cutesy, anime-OST-ready sonics and the digital maximalism of Drain Gang.

Elsewhere on the lineup are the likes of Jackzebra, User116, R!R!Riot and Yaka – a quartet of Mandarin-language artists whose heavily processed, cloud rap-adjacent releases carve out a futuristic vision of Chinese underground music. Or self-proclaimed ‘K-pop b!tch’ The Deep who, in both her EDM-heavy solo releases and behind-the-scenes songwriting for major Korean idol groups, is subtly shifting the ground beneath K-pop’s feet. Clearly, Margins United is much more than just K-pop.

And, on some level, the audience seem to know it, too. The crowd is a funny mix – idol fans waving glowsticks, mopey rage-rap fanboys, hardcore cosplayers, and even one diehard Kimj fan I meet in the smoking area who’d flown in from Poland – but they all seem equally receptive to the range of music on offer. They wave their glowsticks, shake their mopey hair and twirl their maid dresses in their respective displays of tribal appreciation. Backstage at the event I run into R!R!Riot, who is agog. “They were so responsive!” she gushes. “This would never happen in China.” 

Of course, the event isn’t all just music. One floor below Exhibition’s cavernous dance floor I find a row of East Asian food stalls, a vinyl shop and even a bespoke gashapon (Japanese capsule toy) machine – which had been emptied before I had a chance to sample its goods. Across the city at the festival’s nighttime event in Village Underground, meanwhile, there’s DJ sets from the sax-tooting Amanda Sze, fan-waving Tamanaramen and budding hitmaker Kimj. Sadly, flooding in the venue forces an early close before the events’ headliner, Filipino budots champion DJ Love, is able to perform. 

Back at the daytime shows in Exhibition, however, I find the best answer to the traffic wardens’ question. Performing to a peaktime audience comprising all of Eastern Margins’ diasporic tribes, Yves takes a moment to address her newly-unveiled, rebellious red hair. “How do you like it?” she asks coyly to rapturous applause from the crowd, and proceeds to hint at a “new era” in her career. This isn’t K-pop – from China right down to the Philippines, it’s what comes next.

Take a look at the gallery above for the faces of this new wave.