The theme for these last few weeks has been all about collaboration between the groups – and it has been fantastic!! Whether it was on the sports field or on the stage, unification and a healthy dose of fun antics provided a mid-show breather we all needed. Come check out the highlights with me!
Field Day!
Round two leaders, ATEEZ, had the privilege of selecting the two other groups they wanted to join up with for the coming competition between mixed teams. Choosing BtoB and Stray Kids, they formed the collaborative Team “Mayfly” while remaining groups iKon, SF9, and The Boyz came together as Team “It’s One.” To help break the ice and work on team bonding, everyone came together for a hilarious, yet still competitive, field day! All the silly shenanigans that ensued had me laughing so hard I was crying my way through most of the episode 6!!
There were three events in which the Kingdom members were able to showcase their athletic prowess. BtoB’s Minhyuk wowed everyone with his legendary vaulting skills, soaring thru the challenge with ease. Meanwhile, The Boyz’s Kevin kept the spectators rolling with his twerk-filled warm-up routine! During ‘catch the balloon by the tail,’ both teams fought valiantly – shoes were lost and sweaters were stretched beyond recognition as they scrambled to keep their balloons safe from enemy attack. But it was the final relay event that brought out everyone’s most competitive side! ATEEZ’s Wooyung came through in the final moments, giving Team Mayfly the lead at the end of the day. And to wrap up the day, everyone participated in a vote for Kingdom’s best visual. Stray Kid’s Felix was a close runner-up; however, MinHyuk won bragging rights as the winner of this event!
Whether it was enjoying their fried chicken lunch together, fostering new-found friendships, or announcing the day’s events alongside host Max Changmin, spirits were high as everyone came together for this break from the regular competition stress!
Mayfly vs. It’s One
While the field day was great fun, my favorite part of Kingdom so far has been the collaboration performances. Back in the studio, Team Mayfly and Team It’s One challenged one another head-to-head in three stages of competition: Rap, Dance, and Vocal. Also, for this round, 33 guest judges were brought in to judge between the two teams. Shindong and Donghae from Super Junior, renown choreographer Lia Kim, long-time industry producers, and junior groups BDC, Weekly, Tri.Be, and Mirae all took part in voting between each collaboration stage.
HwiYoung and SunWoo looked forward to teaming up with iKon’s Bobby for their rap stage – as members of SF9 and The Boyz, they don’t often get to showcase their raps. Aiming for a relaxed stage that highlighted each artist’s style and flow, and coupled with powerful trap beats plus an addictive hook, It’s One came together to perform ‘Full DaSH’!
Team Mayfly’s rap line not only included 3Racha (BangChan, ChangBin and Han) of Stray Kids, but ATEEZ’s HongJoong and BtoB’s MinHyuk. Creativity overflowed as this group joined together to mix their different ‘colors’ and create new music. Titled ‘Colours’, they brought an art gallery style stage, filled with varied concepts – and like their name Mayfly, it could only be seen for the day.
Leading the It’s One dance team were iKon’s Donghyuk, SF9’s TaeYang, and The Boyz’s JuYeon. Each of these members performed the solo teasers for their respective teams, and they once again brought their strong dance lines to this collab stage! Highlighting each members strengths, each took a turn portraying an ego of the main character King Yeonsan, telling a beautiful yet tragic period story titled ‘King and Queen’.
Team Mayfly brought the biggest crew to the stage, including Peniel of BtoB, LeeKnow, Felix, and IN of Stray Kids, and SeongHwa, YunHo, Yeosang, San, and WooYoung of ATEEZ – whew! Their focus was on featuring several cross-group sub-units throughout the performance, to emphasize Mayfly’s teamwork. Mixing together crumping, hip-hop, and a couple impressive stunt moves, they brought a dramatic and high-energy cover of EXO’s ‘Wolf’ to the stage!
The It’s One vocal team was comprised of three pairs: JinHwan and Ju-ne (iKon), InSeong and JaeYoon (SF9), and New and SangYeon (The Boyz). Once again choosing to highlight the unique vocals of each member of their collaborative team, It’s One chose to bring a dramatic reinterpretation of TaeYeon’s fiery song ‘Spark’ to the stage.
And finally, Team Mayfly’s vocal line took the stage, featuring BtoB’s Eunkwang, Stray Kids’ SeungMin, and ATEEZ’s JongHo. The trio quickly agreed on a well-known piece they felt would allow them to combine their voices in beautiful harmony. Performing a song of healing and comfort, Mayfly presented IU’s ‘Love Poem’.
Thankfully we didn’t have to wait for the scores this round – at the conclusion of the collaboration stages, Team Mayfly made a clean sweep, defeating It’s One in each of the face-offs for rap, dance and vocal!
For those still keeping track (and believe me – it’s been a challenge to keep up with all the changes), the current combined standings after Round One and Round Two were finally revealed. With the addition of the global votes and streaming counts, Stray Kids has assumed the lead, followed by ATEEZ, BtoB, iKon, The Boyz, and SF9.
Fangirling Time!!
I love, love, loved all the collaboration stages!! Even several of the Kingdom artists have since taken to their social media accounts, sharing what a great experience it was to be able to perform alongside their fellow competitors in a joint setting. They love performing and you could see that joy clearly as they were working together!
I admit, I was Team Mayfly all the way! They really embraced the team spirit concept and bonded well over putting their stages together. I’ve been especially impressed with BtoB’s Eunkwang – he really did an excellent job preparing the stage for the vocal team. He skillfully guided each member so that they could perform to their full potential – the three of them were shining equally bright! The flying leap of faith that WooYoung and Felix performed was only doable because they were able to put their trust in one another fully – not an easy thing to do when practice time is limited!! And I may have felt warm fuzzies for HongJoong when he commented on how nice it was to work with the other rappers, since he usually works on his music alone.
Next week we are back to battling it out between the groups for the second part of Round 3. More amazing stages are on the horizon, and I can’t wait!! Until then, I’m going to go bless my ears with the beautiful harmony of Mayfly’s Love Poem just one more time. . .
Drop down and share your favorite collab stages with me in the comments!
Until the next stage-
화이팅!
MiataMama
Dramas with a Side of Kimchi
Not gonna lie, this was my favorite round by far! I loved seeing the groups collaborating together in teams. Frankly, it’s what I’ve been wanting all along, and I only wish that we could have seen more of it in the show.
Everyone did a fabulous job but I was a little confused as to why Team It’s One only brought 3 people to the Dance competition as I think you get a stronger impact with more people in K Pop dance.
For Rap, I thought both teams were evenly matched. For me, I think It’s One was more of a pure rap performance, but Team Mayfly ended the winner. It’s difficult to know what criteria the judges were using to make their decisions.
The Dance competition was really interesting as it was 2 really opposite performances. I was puzzled by Team It’s One having only 3 people on their Dance Team, but I thought they worked well together and I gave them the edge because their performance was really different from the average K Pop routine. Team Mayfly did a great job, but it didn’t feel like anything new, just another dance performance like the ones we’ve been seeing all along. My vote went to Team It’s One, but I can understand why team Mayfly won as their performance was something all of the judges would be familiar and comfortable with, and they had a larger number of people so it made more of an impact.
For Vocal competition, both teams were amazing, but for me the edge was clearly with Team Mayfly. They just did that little bit better, and I think the other team realized it when watching the performance in the waiting rooms. I could see it on their faces when Team Mayfly reached a certain point in the song with a particular harmonizing section that they knew they’d probably lost.
I agree with you that Eunkwang from BTOB really shone this round with the way he acted as mentor and leader to the others for Vocal. It was impressive and really highlighted his skills. I also thought Bobby from IKON did a nice job putting the other members of his group at ease and giving advice. The juniors really seemed to look up to him.
We are back to individual competion next round and it will be exciting to see what each group comes up with now that their are “no limits” to their creativity/artistic vision. But I will admit I’m sad to see the Teams go away as I really enjoyed it and TBH, I wish the Show could have been a Team competition from the beginning.
YES!!! This was my favorite round as well – we just need a whole show full of collaborations! Everyone was having such a great time working together and creating new performances and the mentor/mentee relationships were beautiful! I was just happy seeing them so happy – it was a bonus to have all the fantastic stages as well! I was equally impressed by how quickly they were able to put together all the stages when they didn’t have much time to practice with one another – their talent is underappreciated in many ways!
Even if this teamwork was short-lived, I do think that the teams on this show have made connections and friendships that will carry on long past the finale. And I’m glad for them for that, at least!
Dang. That is my only thought after watching all of these! Of all the performances, I think Love Poem was my favorite. I love that they such a simple stage and really let the performance rest solely on their voices. Those harmonies were amazing! For the rap, I liked them both equally for the totally opposite things they were going for. It’s like having a favorite breakup song and a favorite get together song and having to pick the favorite between the two. It would probably edge more toward Mayfly simply because I love the flow of 3racha. For the dance, I actually liked It’s One better overall because there was focus on the three dancers and they were telling a story. Personally, with a larger cast of dancers I like it better when all of them are synchronized (for an example of a large cast together, I would recommend Seventeen/Nu’est Heaven). Mayfly doing lots of smaller units felt rather fractured to me with too much going on. I wonder if part of that decision was because they didnt have enough time to choreo a whole thing together. That said, I loved Felix’s jump. My favorite little pocket sunshine has no fear. The interactions between the Mayfly groups are probably my favorite, but then I am a Stay, so definitely biased.
So funny story- I’ve recently introduced my mom (who’s in her 70’s) to the world of kpop. And one of the first songs I shared was Mayfly’s Love Poem stage. She absolutely fell in love and has re-watched the stage often! It’s just such a beautifully simple stage and I too love it so much!
Your example on the raps is spot on – so difficult to compare apples and oranges! I was a casual SKZ fan before this show, but I’ve fallen hard for 3Racha here. They are mad talented (and I love their flow)!!
I do agree that time was limited for practice, which likely led to more unit sub-groupings on the Mayfly dance stage. Felix is the most adorable soul and is most definitely my bias for the group!!
I think Mayfly was able to more comfortably interact with one another, more quickly than team It’s One – it just made them feel more cohesive in the long run! But I’m also biased as an ATINY, so…. lol!