In the fall of 2014, Frankie Da Ponte, Jr. was at a crossroads. At the time, the Bristol native and Mt. Hope High School graduate was living in New York City, wearing himself thin as he tried catch a break in the entertainment industry. To pay the bills, he sang in a wedding band, performed as a hired dancer for bar mitzvah and waited tables.

Working too much and auditioning too little, he was faced with a choice: either spend the rest of his life dreaming of what could have been, or take a leap.

Without anything lined up, Frankie quit his highest-paying but most time-consuming job … and two weeks later, landed the gig that would redirect the course of his life.

What started out as simply an experiment has developed into a career-defining journey, as he has spent the last four years as one of the founding members of the world’s first non-Korean, K-pop group, EXP Edition.

Frankie Da Ponte, Jr. is an international pop star.

A born entertainer

From the moment he sang the nursery rhyme “The Green Grass Grows All Around” in kindergarten, Frankie knew he was going to spend his life as a performer. As he continued through the Catholic school system, his love for the arts remained undeterred, but that all came to a screeching halt the moment he started as a freshman at Mt. Hope High School.

An athlete as well, Frankie was uneasy about how his new set of peers would perceive his love for theater. He decided to keep it hidden, refusing to sign up for any plays or musicals his first year.

“Looking back, I was sort of disappointed in myself,” he said.

By the time sophomore year rolled around, though, Frankie had had enough and once again decided to embrace that side of himself. While he had originally feared such a move would ostracize himself from his classmates, Frankie soon found the opposite to be true.

“It was kind of like, ‘Oh my God, dude, why have you been hiding this from us?’ ” he said.

It was a mistake Frankie would never make again, instead immersing himself in the performance arts — sometimes acting in three plays at once — throughout the rest of his time at Mt. Hope. That passion ultimately led him to take a year off from Hofstra University after successfully landing an audition to be part of a different boy band group in Los Angeles. Though that gig ultimately did not work out, the experience proved to Frankie that he was willing to make the sacrifices in order to become successful in the industry.

“That decision at a very young age sort of prepared me later in the future to take a leap, moving across the world to Korea,” he said.

Making the band

Though K-pop — a strain of popular music originating in South Korea and holding roots in a wide variety of genres, including pop, EDM and R&B — Frankie’s first encounter with it came only four years ago while taking classes at the Broadway Dance Center in New York. Choreographers were using songs from the genre in their routines and, instantly, his interest was piqued.

“If I feel something when I’m listening to it, then I’m a fan,” Frankie said.

Just a few months later, he came across a casting call from Columbia University graduate student and South Korean native, Bora Kim. Fascinated by how the idolization of K-pop had helped to alter her home country’s economy, she set out on an ambitious project — to explore the underlying concepts defining the industry by documenting the formation of a non-Korean boy band for her MFA thesis project. Always harboring a secret desire to be in a group like NSYNC, the Backstreet Boys and 98 Degrees, Frankie auditioned and was one of six members selected to comprise the group originally just called EXP, short for experiment.

Throughout that winter and into the spring, he and his band members were given a crash course in the inner workings of the K-pop music industry. From learning the language to perfecting their choreography, defining their individual looks and producing a video, the number of variables going into creating a Korean boy band group was, for Frankie, a little jarring.

“I didn’t really digest the whole other side of it,” he said.

At that stage in the game, EXP was still largely flying under the radar, but that would change quickly. Just as the band was about to simultaneously release and perform their first single, “Luv/Wrong,” social media caught wind of Ms. Kim’s project and the idea of a New York-born K-pop group lit a fire, sparking a heated debate among the genre’s passionate fanbase. 

“Nobody was ready for it, nobody was expecting it,” Frankie said. “It came out of nowhere.”

The next edition

Already generating interest and publicity, EXP rode that initial wave of intrigue and disparagement to the next level. They funded their next few singles through a Kickstarter campaign and performed at fine art venues across the country.

By August of 2016, it had become clear that the band had outlived its growth within the United States. Moving to Seoul, South Korea — something that had always felt like a wild, far-fetched dream — suddenly seemed like the next logical step.

It was a difficult decision for Frankie. Coming from a tight-knit family, he especially did not want to leave his parents behind after they had already lost his older brother to cancer back in 2012. But he knew he had to take the leap.

“Behind every insane, crazy thing there is greatness, there is amazingness,” he said.

With the support of those surrounding him, Frankie — joined by band members Hunter Kohl, Sime Kosta and Koki Tomlinson — set off to begin the next phase of their journey as the newly named group, EXP Edition.

Redefining K-pop

Now thousands of miles away from home, Frankie and his bandmates found solace in one another as they struggled to get through those first few months. The training was harder, the days and nights longer, and all the while they were unsure of how the Korean public would perceive them once they finally made their debut.

To Frankie’s relief, though, the group received a sense of validation after earning the support of Korean powerhouse group Super Junior during their first performance on the live competition show, “I Can See Your Voice.” While the release of their “comeback” single, “Feel Like This,” just three days later in April of 2017 was once again met with extreme (sometimes even hostile) criticism — namely by non-Korean K-pop fans accusing the band of cultural appropriation — Frankie found the atmosphere within their new country to be mostly welcoming and encouraging.

“I don’t think we were actually really K-pop until we moved to Korea,” he said.

It was not until the release of their song, “Stress,” almost a year later when Frankie really began to see a shift in critics’ stance on them. A stark contrast from the colorful, upbeat “Feel Like This,” their new single — featuring a rap verse and a saxophone — was edgier, explosive and, ultimately, praised for feeling more like K-pop. It is a fine line they will continually have to walk, striking the balance between traditional and experimental K-pop, but their efforts have begun to inspire a new wave of non-Korean K-pop hopefuls around the world.

“It’s incredible to see people chasing their dreams and changing their mindset because of what we’ve created,” Frankie said.

After releasing their first mini-album, First Edition, shortly after (available on streaming services such as Spotify and Google Play), the group spent the summer in Japan and performing at the 2018 Winter Olympics before taking a much needed break back home in the United States for the holidays. Soon, though, they will get back to plotting their next move for EXP Edition. A documentary following their journey is currently in the works, and Frankie is working to be able to write their songs in Korean. Until then, he will continue to try to absorb as much about his new country’s culture as he possibly can, as EXP Edition aims to shine a light on what he calls K-pop’s “remarkable genre.”

“That’s what you do when you love something.”