Big Bang

It seemed as if five leopards were advancing forward. The five men with leopard jackets designed personally and golden gloves had warm fuzzes on their face but seemed to growl at an instant. But the team’s leader, G-Dragon (Kwon Ji-yong, 19) first mentions the time when he fell ill after their first concert.

“After finishing our concert on December 30 last year, I had a bad cold as well as enteritis… I feel so apologetic to the team members.” (G-Dragon)

12,000 People at Their First Concert-

He is ill but happy. The five-person group ‘Big Bang’ from YG Entertainment released three single albums each month since their debut last August, and recorded close to 100,000 albums in sales, while their debut album released at the end of the year is recording first place for two weeks according to record sales (Hanteo Information System). Their record that since their debut of less than six months that brought 12,000 people to their first concert is impressive. They are still ‘baby leopards,’ but the fans lauded them by labeling them as ‘the singers with the brightest future for 2007’.

“Perhaps our music is ‘fluorescent’? We want to perform hip-hop music that is as bright as fluorescent colors.’ We hear criticism that ‘they’re just idols’, but there is still much to show you. We want to become an altered idol group popularizing a new musical genre.” (TOP, Choi Seung-hyun, 20)

The Difficult Past-

It has taken six years for them to reach their present stage. In 2000, when they were sixth-graders, G-Dragon and Taeyang (Dong Young-bae, 19) embraced their dream of becoming singers and knocked on the doors of YG Entertainment, but since then they only participated sporadically in the albums of their seniors with no chance of a debut. After five years, TOP, who had performed rap in a club near Hongik University, brought a demo CD to the company, while Daesung (Kang Dae-sung•18), who was attending singing classes, and Seungri (Lee Seung-hyun, 17), known as the ‘Dancer of Gwangju’ joined the team, creating a blueprint of Big Bang.

“We gave up our studies, our friends, even field trips, and we devoted our teens. Regrets? Never. We are happy just for the fact that we are heading for our dreams. Whenever we were discouraged, we stuck with the thought that ‘this is all going to pay off someday’.” (Taeyang)

“My dad didn’t say hello, but only sighed. My aunts shouted, ‘Music, don’t do that sort of thing.’ It was hard because I couldn’t rely on anyone, but I survived by obstinacy.” (Daesung)

Obstacles to Overcome-

Other teenage groups are ‘pretty boy’ and ‘dandy’ styles, while they attempted to differentiate themselves with a rough and tough image. ‘Dirty Cash’, the title song satirizing dirty money in the adult world as seen through the eyes of a teenager, ‘She Can’t Get Enough’, the hardcore hip-hop ‘Big Boy’ reflects ambition that belies their novelty. But their weakness lies in the fact that they do not have a lead song despite their team recognition. The members nodded their heads, saying, “we plan to continue with a single song.”

There is still a long way to go. In order to survive, they should discard their label as an ‘idol group’, and in order to find the uniqueness of ‘Big Bang’ they should leave the shelter of YG’s CEO Yang Hyun-suk someday. But they seem confident, saying, “We still have many days ahead of us.”

“It’s hard to become completely free from our seniors. Actually, we are also worried about the future of ‘Big Bang’. But we will continue to play our music that is bright and cheerful, but with an attitude to music that is serious and grave. If we continue to deliberate like this each day, one day we may really roar.” (Seungri)

bsism@donga.com