EXO (band)

Exo
Exo in August 2016 From left to right, standing: Baekhyun, Chen, Lay, Sehun, Chanyeol, D.O., Kai From left to right, kneeling: Suho, Xiumin
Background information
Origin	Seoul, South Korea
Genres	K-pop R&B Dance-pop Electronic Hip hop
Years active	2012–present
Labels	S.M. Entertainment KT Music Avex Trax
Associated acts	EXO-CBX SM Town
Website	Exo
Members	Xiumin Suho Lay Baekhyun Chen Chanyeol D.O. Kai Sehun
Past members	Luhan Kris Tao

Exo (Korean: 엑소; stylized as EXO) is a South Korean-Chinese boy group based in Seoul. Formed by S.M. Entertainment in 2011, the group debuted in 2012 with twelve members separated into two subgroups, Exo-K and Exo-M, performing music in Korean and Mandarin respectively. Exo's first album XOXO (2013), which contained the breakthrough hit "Growl", was a critical and commercial success, winning both Disk Daesang at the 28th Golden Disk Awards and Album of the Year at the 15th Mnet Asian Music Awards. It sold over one million copies, making Exo the best-selling Korean artist in twelve years. Subsequent albums and EPs continued with strong sales, and Exo were ranked the most influential celebrity by Forbes Korea for the year 2014 and 2015. They have been named "the biggest boyband in the world" by media outlets, saying that "EXO are at the forefront of pop domination, with knife-point choreography seamlessly gelled to songs crafted by some of the world’s most gifted writers and producers, honed by their myriad of personalities and talents."

In May 2014, Kris filed a lawsuit against S.M. Entertainment to be removed from the group.Luhan followed suit in October 2014. In April 2015, Tao suspended his activities and subsequently followed suit in August 2015. Following their departures, Exo carried on with nine members. In July 2016, it was announced that the lawsuit between Luhan, Kris, and S.M. Entertainment had been settled: the two idols will maintain their contract with SM until 2022, S.M. Entertainment will contract out their work outside of Korea and Japan—i.e. to their current Chinese agencies—and they will "share related revenues with S.M. Entertainment."

In May 2011, at a Hallyu business seminar held at Stanford University, Lee Soo-man spoke about a strategy of debuting a new boyband, in which they would be divided into 2 subgroups, promoting the same music simultaneously in South Korea and China by performing songs in both Korean and Mandarin. After several changes, in December 2011, the group finalized their name to Exo, taken from the word exoplanet. They are divided into two subgroups, Exo-K ('K' for Korean) for South Korea and Exo-M ('M' for Mandarin) for China. They debuted their first televised performance at SBS's annual Gayo Daejun event on December 29, 2011.