You look ready.
I got some control top leggings on.
What? Please, yes.
Why?
So you're trying to make me an international pop star
in less than a day?
It's gonna work out.
Congratulations, your first English language album,
"Before We Begin," just dropped.
Thank you.
I wish it was longer. That's my only complaint.
Eight songs? I was like,
I need another like eight songs.
Why did you decide to do English?
This is my first all-English album,
and because why not? And because-- okay.
So I went to Korea to become a "pop star".
A big reason why I had to go to Korea is because
there are no Asians on TV or doing music.
Yeah.
We're in 2020, it took time
Yeah.
And still to this day I feel like
there need to be more Asian,
Asian American people doing music, doing more film,
Yeah.
People will be watching this episode
and you might be like their entry point into K-pop,
pop music, so how does that feel?
Do you feel like a lot of pressure to represent the genre
or are you just kinda like, "I'm Eric.
I'm ENams. I'm NamNam"?
Yeah.
I don't want to represent an entire industry.
I think it's so diverse and there's many layers to it
from the idols like BTS, you got singer-songwriters,
Mm-hmm.
I might throw little, little hip gestures
here and there on stage, that's about it.
You're going to teach me some moves later. I'm very excited.
So, um, I don't want to represent everything
but I think it's something that people can say,
"Oh this is a great starting point".
Okay, well we're here in America,
we're in New York.
Yeah, we are.
We're in-studio, so we're gonna record, learn choreo,
and shoot a music video today.
Yes.
Okay.
So then we gotta go do some vocal warmups.
What do you think of when you think of vocal warmups?
Mariah Carey when she's like...
...like dog whistle.
I can't do that.
I want to stand, let's stand.
You're going to stand? All right.
Just start humming. Just hmmmm.
(both hum)
That's good. And you gotta get--
Am I a singer?
There you go. You got it.
Twerk, twerk, twerk.
Now this does not help your singing, but it's all good.
Really?
Yeah, before I go on stage, just to clear it up.
(yelling)
I'm serious, this is how I warm up.
Okay.
(both yell)
Is this like "A Star Is Born" except we're not gonna smash
because I don't have talent?
(Eric laughs)
You're like, "Don't turn around.
When I get out the car, I'm not gonna call after you."
So this is the song. I haven't heard it yet.
This is your debut single.
I got the lyrics, very true to my life.
Uh-huh.
So you know you've got to clean up your apartment
before your piece comes over to make out.
Right, right.
And I feel like that's everyone in their 30s.
Right. You don't want to be a slob.
You want to be presentable.
And that's what the song's about.
(funky music)
You know what? Pray for me, Eric.
Okay.
♪ You're on your way to my place ♪
♪ Texting me U UP all in uppercase ♪
♪ Need to tidy up so we can get dirty ♪
♪ Can't believe this mess we're over 30 ♪
♪ Hide this biscuit ♪
♪ I'll save it for later ♪
♪ We can roleplay Lisa Turtle, AC Slater ♪
Was any of that good?
I think what it is is you just need...
(Phoebe laughs)
Whenever someone's like,
"You know what I think is happening?"
Do you want to go ahead and hear what you just did?
I mean, do any of us want to hear that?
I think take two we can fix all of that.
(Phoebe laughs)
I will go out there
and I will coach you from out there,
Yeah.
You're good, you got this.
I'm going to be a pop star in a day.
Okay, so Eric left the recording studio booth.
He's outside. This is rough.
And I want to nail this.
I want to be on the path to EGOT.
This is going to be my "G."
Oh, man, this is...
(humming the song)
I thought I booked enough time for this, but this might--
I don't-- I might have to push my flight back, guys.
This is-- I'm-- don't-- she can't hear this, right? No.
Should I sing higher or lower, Eric?
What do you mean?
Uh, what do you mean higher or lower?
Like should I sing like higher notes?
Yeah.
All right, we're going to do-- we're going to go line by line.
So let's do the chorus.
♪ We need to tidy up so we can get dirty ♪
You want to hear it? Or you want to just do it again?
Okay let's do it again.
♪ We need to tidy up so we can get dirty ♪
Yeah, I think uh...
♪ We need to tidy up so we can get dirty ♪
Ooh, wait, let's start this, let's start that back.
Let's (bleep) rewind that (bleep) back.
♪ We need to tidy up so we can get dirty ♪
Why does this sound so bad?
(laughter)
(Phoebe screams)
♪ We need to tidy up so we can get dirty ♪
Yeah. See, that "dirty" was really good.
Ah!
Let's do that first line.
♪ We need to tidy up so we can get dirty ♪
Yeah, it went bad again.
♪ We need to tidy up so we can get dirty ♪
Okay, cut.
What is music?
What is it?!
Okay.
♪ Can't believe this mess we're over 30 ♪
Let's just do "over 30."
♪ Over 30 ♪
♪ O-over 30 ♪
♪ Over 30 ♪
♪ Ooo... ♪
There you go.
♪ Over 30 ♪
We're just going to keep it like that.
You want to hear it?
No, this is like Day Two of my period on repeat.
It's just never (bleep) ending.
(Eric laughs)
Yes.
...no training...
Nothing.
Never sung before.
...you're doing well.
Yeah, yeah.
Okay.
And he's going to do all that for us.
He's going to match it up, clean it up.
You're going to make it good.
You're going to sound-- you're going to be like,
"Whoa, that's me?"
Okay, so I'm going to give you
some notes when you're in there.
Can we-- do you-- is there an auto-tune we can just
Yeah.
You're like, "Can we auto-tune immediately?"
What do you think for the key?
It might be C.
That's what I was hearing, too.
Yeah, I heard C. Awesome.
(laughter)
Let's do a take.
♪ Yeah, Phoebe Robinson ♪
♪ Yeah, ay... ♪
♪♪
♪ We can get dirty ♪
♪ Yeah, we're over 30 yeah ♪
Oh, my God, one-take wonder over here.
Yes!
Thank you, thank you.
That was so good.
I mean, if you could be on key the next pass.
All right. I'll work on that.
I'll work on that.