YG Entertainment has had a great year so far. It all started with 2NE1 in the beginning of the year that made a huge hit. After that, Taeyang, AKMU, and Epik High all made it on the top charts. With having hits from all these artists, you can for sure say that YG has had one of the busiest and yet the most successful year. Many people are looking forward to who the next artist will be.
In January, 2015, YG has announced that a new boy group called IKON will debut. IKON has 7 members and out of the 7 members, 6 of them have been in a previous survival program called ‘WIN: Who Is Next’ as Team B along with Team A who is now known as Winner.
Team A and Team B had to win a certain amount of battles in order to debut. They competed against each other in singing and dancing and how the winning team was chosen was by 70% votes from the people (not only in South Korea but other countries like Japan, Singapore, United States, and etc., participated) and 30% of votes from the judges from YG Entertainment. It was a very close battle where you had no clue as to who was going to win. Team B unfortunately lost the battle but another choice was given to them about a year later.
YG released another survival program and this time it was kind of different. The group name they will be debuting is IKON and there are only 7 spots. The show only had Team B who had 6 people, and 3 more members were added to make it more challenging. They all did their best to gain their spots and at the end, all 6 members of Team B made it into IKON and an additional member named Jung Chanwoo made it. Most people are already familiar with the 6 members since they’ve already appeared on ‘WIN: Who Is Next’ but most don’t really know about Chanwoo because he’s new. Even with the new member IKON is receiving so much attention already and they haven’t even officially debuted yet. It’s crazy to see all the fans they gained just by being on the survival shows! And to those of you who don’t know the members, I’ll introduce them to you.
B.I: Leader, known for his amazing rap skills, choreography, and making music.
Bobby: outstanding rapper who appeared on the show called ‘Show Me The Money’, which is a rapping contest show and he won against all his competitors.
Kim Jinhawn: has amazing vocal and dancing techniques, and he’s the oldest member.
Goo Junhoe: main vocal and is also a great dancer.
Song Yoonhyung: vocal, his singing improved a lot since the survival program against Team A.
Kim Donghyeok: vocal, has a very light toned voice and he also improved a lot since the survival program.
Jung Chanwoo: played as the actor’s Lee Minho’s younger version of character in the drama Boys Over Flowers. Has a great voice and can dance well.
The next upcoming artist besides IKON is the new girl group. I don’t have too much information on this group yet because YG didn’t really make it clear. They’ve been promoting the group for almost 2 years now saying they’ll be debuting soon but no one really knows when this will happen. Two years ago, they were supposed to debut in the fall, but they kept moving the date, so who knows when. I’m guessing sometime next year though since they don’t have any other girl groups besides 2NE1 and 2NE1 already released an album the beginning of this year.
—Juyeon Oh