NUGUU

About NUGUU

NUGUU (누구) means "who?" in Korean — it's also the term K-Pop fans use for underrated, lesser-known artists who haven't yet gained mainstream recognition. This website finds groups and soloists under the radar by analyzing their YouTube engagement relative to their view counts.

The mainstream K-Pop industry is dominated by a handful of major labels — SM, JYP, HYBE, YG. Thousands of talented artists from smaller companies never get the visibility they deserve, despite having passionate, dedicated fanbases. NUGUU surfaces these artists by measuring what actually matters: how deeply fans engage with the music, not just how many people have seen it.

How the Nugu Score Works

• Engagement Rate — likes + comments divided by total views. A 10% rate is exceptional; most mainstream artists sit around 2-4%.
• View Penalty — artists with millions of views are penalized because they're already discovered. The sweet spot is under 500K views with high engagement.
• Community Upvotes — users can upvote artists they believe deserve more attention, boosting their ranking in Trending.

What Counts as "Nugu"?

There's no hard cutoff, but generally: if your average MV has under 1 million views and you're not from a Big 4 company, you're probably nugu. Some artists on this site are on the edge of breaking out — that's the exciting part. You might be discovering your next favorite group before everyone else does.

Features

• Discover — browse all nugu artists sorted by engagement score
• Trending — see which nugus the community is upvoting right now
• Reviews — share your thoughts on artists you've discovered
• Upvote — push underrated artists higher in the rankings