On Nov. 9, Jemmia Pennix’s brainchild and senior project, Pínkmoon, performed seven songs from their debut album inspired by the K-pop genre, in the Activities Resource Center (ARC) at Point Loma Nazarene University. With a melody of different voices, textures, harmonies and beats, the group brought the room to its feet dancing in a night of Latin, electric and rock grooves.
Pennix, a fourth-year commercial music and marketing major, said she grew up with music and started her journey in the field by writing parodies.
“Music has been in my whole family. We kinda grew up around that,” Pennix said. “Funny enough, my brother wrote a parody for Minecraft, and I was like, I can do that. And so I wrote a parody of Minecraft using the song ‘After the Blackout’ by The Fold that was used from the TV show ‘Ninjago.’ I was really starting to see I really like doing this. So ‘Ninjago’ was one of the reasons why I was inspired to take my major of commercial music.”
Pennix said she first started listening to the Korean boy band BTS and went down the “rabbit hole” of K-pop artists, finding her love of the genre in the storytelling and community. She wants to help market smaller groups, using her love of the concepts and creation behind the genre.
According to The Los Angeles Film School, “K-pop draws influence from a range of genres like pop, experimental, rock, hip-hop, R&B, electronic and dance. The variety of influences is so vast there’s a K-pop band or performer for every taste.”
Pennix enjoys using her knowledge and passion for the K-pop genre to help showcase talented artists.
“There are a ton of different K-pop groups that are very small and not well known and I think that if people knew more about them, like if they were marketed differently, they would get a lot more attraction,” Pennix said. “I want to bring out a lot more of those artists who have good voices and help them, and help other people know more about them.”
The group consists of some of Pennix’s former and current roommates, ‘23 PLNU alum Amarí Santoyo, second-year nursing major Helmsley Farmer, fourth-year communications major Kareen Boyadijian and a third-year business admin major Madi Curby.
According to Farmer and Boyadijian, the group had less than a month to rehearse, record and bring the songs to the stage.
“We threw it together really fast but it came together in the end,” Farmer said. “That was actually our first time doing it all together.”
Pínkmoon performed one of the songs from the album, “Boom,” as the audience watched the music video they recorded across the PLNU campus. According to Pennix, the group’s concept is a spy, “girl boss” vibe, which the music video illustrates.
During the event, audience participation included playing a game and ended with the audience dancing to the last song of the evening, “Baila.”
Jaden Goldfain, a PLNU masters student said she is very close with Pennix and the other girls in the group.
“Jemmia Pennix was my second friend in college ever so I have watched her work on these songs since the beginning,” Goldfain said. “I was seriously on the brink of tears the whole time, genuinely.”
Pennix’s senior project advisor, Chaz Celaya, an assistant music professor and the Director of Commercial Music at PLNU, said he encouraged Pennix to experience the process of a K-pop production.
Instead of having her senior project being her as the sole artist, Celaya said Pennix is the mastermind behind Pínkmoon and worked the group through the whole process.
“There’s kind of like a machinery to it in that they write the songs, they craft the songs, produce the songs,” Celaya said. “And then they find the people that can be like the vehicles for the songs that can sing them, and the ones that are going to be presenting the songs are going to be kind of the faces of the songs to the public. So it’s kind of this curated group.”
Celaya said that Pennix’s music productions are actually “very grand.”
“She has sometimes 400 to 500 tracks coming together to make these songs. I’ve never seen track counts as high as hers,” Celaya said.
Pínkmoon’s album will be released in physical form as well as on Spotify. To stay updated and learn more, check out their YouTube channel and Instagram account, @pinkmoon_shinebright.
