About Tempo

Exo (Korean: stylized as EXO) is a South Korean–Chinese boy band based in Seoul, with nine members: Suho, Baekhyun, Chanyeol, D.O., Kai, Sehun, Xiumin, Lay and Chen. The band was formed by SM Entertainment in 2011 and debuted in 2012. Their music incorporates genres like pop, hip-hop, and R&B, alongside electronic dance music genres like house, trap, and synth-pop. Exo releases and performs music in Korean, Mandarin, and Japanese. The band ranked as one of the top five most influential celebrities on the Forbes Korea Power Celebrity list each year from 2014 to 2018, and have been named "the biggest boy band in the world" and the "kings of K-pop" by the media

Exo-K's leader, Suho, was the first member to join SM Entertainment, after a successful audition through the company's casting system in 2006. The following year, Kai, with encouragement from his father, auditioned at the SM Youth Best Contest; he won and received a contract. Chanyeol, who took second place in a Smart Model Contest, and Sehun, who went through four auditions in two years, were the next members to become trainees in 2008. In 2010, Exo-K's D.O. sang for his audition and was eventually offered a contract. The last member of Exo-K to become a trainee was Baekhyun, who joined in 2011 through SM Entertainment's casting system and trained for approximately one year before debut. In Exo-M, Kris auditioned in 2008 at a global SM Entertainment audition in Canada, before moving to South Korea for training. That same year, Lay auditioned in Changsha, China, and subsequently moved to South Korea, while Xiumin attended an audition with his friend and won second place. In 2010, Luhan was scouted by an SM Entertainment representative in Seoul and passed his audition, while Tao was scouted at a talent show. The last member to join Exo-M was Chen, who took part in the casting system in 2011. Speaking at a Stanford University business seminar in May 2011, SM Entertainment founder Lee Soo-man shared a strategy of debuting a new boy band that would be divided into two sub-groups, promoting the same music simultaneously in South Korea and China by performing songs in both Korean and Mandarin. After several member changes, in December 2011, the group finalized its name as Exo, taken from the word "exoplanet". They were divided into two sub-groups: Exo-K for South Korea and Exo-M for China. The band's first televised performance was at the annual SBS Gayo Daejeon event on December 29, 2011.