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| K-pop artists BOL4, left, and Lee Gi-kwang strongly deny involvement in chart manipulation. Korea Times file |
By Lee Gyu-lee
K-pop artists Lee Gi-kwang and BOL4 have strongly denied allegations they took part in manipulating music charts.
Lee's agency Around US Entertainment told the Hankook Ilbo on Wednesday that the artist has nothing to do with the allegations. "We will be responding to this spread of false rumors with legal procedures," it said.
BOL4's agency Shofar Music said: "We were surprised that BOL4's name was mentioned... we are reviewing to take legal action."
Politician Kim Geun-tae of the People's Party raised the allegations at a press conference Wednesday, naming a list of artists over a chart-ranking scheme.
He said IT marketing company Creativer illegally acquired random user accounts of streaming sites and used them to manipulate the charts by increasing the streaming numbers of a song.
"The artists I've confirmed that have worked with this company are Ko Seung-hyung, girl groups GWSN and Badkiz, BOL4, Song Ha-yea, YoungTak, YOYOMI, Sohyang, Ali and Lee Gi-kwang," he said.
Artists who were mentioned have been releasing statements denying Kim's claim, including GWSN, Ko, YoungTak and Song.
