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The man behind BTS's "Black Swan" and "ON" and SHINee's "Key's Eighteen (End Of My World)" is a Filipino.

In an exclusive interview with GMANetwork.com, August Rigo shared how he ended up producing songs for South Korean artists.

"I got into K-pop fairly early. I started going to Korea in 2013. A friend of mine, another amazing K-pop producer who's actually in a singing group with me when I was in high school, invited me on a K-pop writing retreat in Korea, to write for SM [Entertainment]," August said.

The Filipino-Canadian revealed that when he got to South Korea in 2013, pop music was far different and he had a hard time adapting to their music preferences.

"It was very different to go to Korea and especially in 2013. Right now, you can hear the progression of the music coming from the K-pop side, the preferences are a little more westernized. It is almost far from what you hear on pop radio now because of immigration.

"Back then the K-pop that they were doing, that they wanted from us, was really foreign to me. There were a lot of changes. It was almost like the early 2000s pop like NSYNC and Backstreet Boys. It's really great music still, very musical, but it had a lot of changes, a lot of very intricate parts and pieces," he shared.

August added, "It's almost like three or four songs into one. It was definitely a study. It was very hard for me to adapt to the situation at first. But I'm good at studying and I've studied music all my life so I was able to grasp it, and it became something that I really enjoyed. I enjoy the challenge of going to another country.

"It was a whole sub-genre of music so it wasn't just pop, it wasn't just RnB. It was everything pushed into one. You have to figure out how to take every single one of those influences and put it into one song."

August shared that he is proud and grateful that he got a chance to experience producing and writing songs for K-pop artists.

"It was a great experience. It was a great practice. I didn't do anything really good I think on my first trip. But they kept inviting me back to Korea and eventually I kind of figure out what they wanted," he said.

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A post shared by August Rigo (@augamatic)

In the interview, August revealed that producing and writing songs for K-pop artists doesn't require you to study their language.

"I didn't study Korean. When you are there you got to learn a little bit of Korean. But with regards to writing songs for K-pop, a lot of times there's going to be a translation.

"What you're looking for and writing those songs are the strong melody. There's always like a couple of simple English words that they can interject into the Korean language."

August is a recording artist, songwriter, producer, and musician. He was born and raised in Canada by Filipino parents. He started his music career in the United States in 2003 and has made songs for Justin Bieber, One Direction, Chris Brown, and K-pop artists like BTS and SHINee's Key.

Watch August Rigo's two-part interview here:

Part 1:

Part 2:

Meanwhile, know more about legendary K-pop group SHINee in this gallery: