G-Dragon
Inside the mind of a creative genius
Inside the mind of a creative genius
Kwon Ji Yong was born on August 18, 1988 and was raised in Seoul, South Korea.
His career began with the group Little Roo'Ra. However, the group's contract was terminated and in shock, Kwon vowed to his mother that he would leave the music industry.
Kwon was introduced to the American rap group Wu Tang Clan and started to develop an interest in rap. He took classes and eventually signed under YG Entertainment, another entertainment giant.
Kwon and his good friend Dong Young-Bae, originally planned to debut as a hip-hop duo. Kwon chose G-Dragon to be his stage name, since Ji was pronounced like "G" and
G-Dragon and Dong, who chose the stage name Taeyang, were joined by Choi Seung-hyun (who chose T.O.P), Daesung, Seungri, and Jang Hyun-seung in hopes of creating a successful boy-band. Jang was soon dropped, and the 5 others debuted as boy-band Big Bang with their first album Big Bang Vol.1 in 2007.
The following years came with a massive wave of singles from the members. G-Dragondropped his first solo album, Heartbreaker in August of 2009 and staged his first solo concert in Decemeber of the same year.
G-Dragon's following album was a hit, One of a Kind sold over 200,000 copies and becomethe highest selling solo album in Korea at the time. G-Dragon became the second Korean solo artist to have a world tour, and travelled across 13 cities around the globe.
G-Dragon spent most of 2015 and 2016 touring with his band for their third Korean album, meeting over 3.6 millions fans. The album MADE, was hugely successful and cemented Big Bang as one of the most legendary korean boy-bands of all time.
In 2017, G-Dragon released another solo record. The album, titled by his own name, expressed many of his thoughts and frustrations of the real world. Most notably, he announced that he wanted to seperate himself from his stage persona. G-Dragon didn't want people to remember him as G-Dragon, but rather as Kwon Ji-Yong.
G-Dragon began his two-year mandatory military service in 2018. He was assigned to Gangwon province as an active duty soldier and was discharged in October of 2019.
While he has halted in his musical endeavors, G-Dragon still continues to play a big role in korean culture. Immediately following his discharge from the military, he teamed up with Nike to produce a creative shoe whose outer layer of paint intentially chips off to showcase a design inspired by G-Dragon's visions of art as a form of self-expression for youth around the world.