Three Korean acts made YouTube's '2026 Foundry'

In three lines.

• Three Korean acts made the cut for YouTube's artist-development program '2026 Foundry': the bands Silica Gel and wave to earth, and singer-songwriter Hanroro.
• Foundry is a program that supports the global expansion of artists with strong room to grow.
• All three came up from the indie scene, building audiences at home and abroad.

What Foundry actually is

Foundry is YouTube's program for picking out artists with strong room to grow and helping them expand worldwide. It's where the platform chooses the names it'll get behind for the year, so making the list means you've been marked as 'a name that'll be heard louder from here on.' This year's Korean slots went to three acts: Silica Gel, wave to earth, and Hanroro.

A platform hand-picking who it supports carries more weight than you might think. On a space where music plays across borders, it means these three could slip into recommendation feeds a little more often, no matter which country the listener is in. For people who are already fans, that's welcome news; for people who don't know them yet, it's one more path where they might brush past for the first time.

What catches the eye is the texture of these three. Not K-pop idols, but two bands and one singer-songwriter, side by side on a global support list. For a long time, idols stood at the front row whenever Korean music was talked about abroad — and this reads as a sign that other faces are starting to stand there beside them.

Three acts, from indie out into the world

All three started out in the indie scene. Not by the playbook of a big agency, but by building their sound in their own studios and on their own stages. Silica Gel and wave to earth in band sound, Hanroro in a singer-songwriter's voice — the methods are all their own, but the path of widening an audience at home and abroad looks alike. Since each has its own texture, this isn't about lining them up to say who's better.

Three acts landing in the same place is proof that the grammar of indie travels past borders too. It means Korean music's 'export list' isn't idols alone. When acts that pushed their own color rather than chasing trends start knocking on doors abroad, it says the range of Korean music heard overseas has grown that much wider. It's the result of time stacked up on stages and in studios — not names that rose overnight.

That's the last of the numbers. Now, the music. The one thing that ties these three together is a sound that's unmistakably their own. Before calculating what to make trend, they made the sound they themselves wanted to keep listening to. That stubbornness ending up working abroad too is an especially welcome part for listeners who've cheered them on for a long time. Picture someone in an unfamiliar country pressing play on these three for the first time, and the radius of your rooting feels like it's stretched a little wider. Sharing a sound you've loved with more people to listen together — for a fan, that's the proudest thing there is.

Of the three acts on the list, let's start with the sound of wave to earth.