All about BTS’ J-Hope and the K-pop star’s mega success

In 13 June 2013, a 19-year-old named Jung Ho-seuk made his debut with a new K-pop boy band that would soon smash records and set hearts racing around the world. His prowess in dance, which he had practised since the tender age of six, saw him become the third idol trainee signed by Big Hit Entertainment to become a member of BTS. At that time, few would have guessed that this callow youth would shine as part of a global pop culture movement.

J-Hope and Glory The biggest money-spinner of K-pop phenomenon BTS is no slouch when sharing his success with the world gafencu (10)

Fast forward to today, and not only has BTS become the most successful, best-selling South Korean musical act in history.

The singing-and-dancing septet has hit countless other international milestones, including becoming the first Asian and non-English-speaking group to be named ‘Global Recording Artist of the Year’ by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry; the non-profit organisation representing the interests of the recording industry across the globe, which recently reconfirmed their 2020 accolade to BTS for a second year. Dubbed the ‘Princes of Pop’, the band has garnered numerous music accolades in South Korea, and in the West.

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Such is the popularity and success of J-Hope (Jung’s stage name) and his cohorts that they’re estimated to pull in a staggering US$5 billion a year.

To put that into perspective, that’s roughly half a percent of South Korea’s overall GDP. In recognition of their efforts, in another historic first, BTS became the youngest-ever recipients of the country’s Order of Cultural Merit.

Although all members of BTS have reaped serious rewards for their years of hard work, J-Hope has been tapped as the highest earner according to a variety of media outlets. Here, we delve into the circumstances of his rapid rise, famous family members and other lesser-known facts about the mega talented dancer, rapper and singer.

 

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Sibling Success
Jung was born on 18 February 1994 in Gwangju, South Korea’s sixth-largest metropolitan city. Few details are available about his parents – some claim his father is a teacher of literature, while other sources identify him as a businessman.

There is, however, rather more known about his elder sister, Jung Da-won, who also uses the name Jung Ji-woo. She’s so much more than just the sister of a K-pop idol, though. An entrepreneur at heart, she runs several businesses – fashion company AJ Look, e-commerce platform Mejiwoo as well as eyewear brand Fun the Metal. The social-media whizz also boasts millions of followers on both Instagram and YouTube, and latterly signed an exclusive contract with another South Korean entertainment company, Cube Entertainment. Clearly, the Jung siblings have more than their fair share of natural talent.

J-Hope and Glory The biggest money-spinner of K-pop phenomenon BTS is no slouch when sharing his success with the world gafencu

Big Hitter
J-Hope is renowned as a skilled dancer, rapper and singer. However, during his schooldays, he had another, more athletic aptitude: tennis. “It’s funny how I started playing… my teacher asked, ‘Who wants to play tennis?’ and I was just stretching with both of my arms up high at that moment and she thought I wanted to join tennis,” recalls Jung with a laugh. Despite this accidental and somewhat inauspicious start, the tennis starlet would go on to win third place at a national tournament.

J-Hope and Glory The biggest money-spinner of K-pop phenomenon BTS is no slouch when sharing his success with the world gafencu (6)

Stepping Up
Bitten by the dancing bug as a young child, J-Hope began taking lessons at Gwangju Music Academy, whose famous alumni include fellow idols Seungri of Big Bang and 2NE1’s Minzy. He then went on to accrue several prestigious dance laurels including the top prize at a 2008 national competition.

With these experiences under his belt, he joined underground dance team Neuron before auditioning for JYP Entertainment in 2009. While the 15-year-old didn’t make the cut there, he was quickly able to turn things around and continue pursuing his dream. His sense of rhythm was applauded at Big Hit Entertainment, which signed him up later that year, leading to his spot in BTS.

 

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J-Hope and Glory The biggest money-spinner of K-pop phenomenon BTS is no slouch when sharing his success with the world gafencu (12)

Lyrical Low
J-Hope is admired by the ARMY (Adorable Representative M.C. of Youth, or BTS’s legion of global die-hard fans) as the ever-chipper member of the group. However, that’s not to say that he hasn’t faced his own uncertainties when it comes to his music. “I’m someone who got into music from dance. [So] I still need direction when it comes to music,” he shares.

Recalling a recent painful slump in his songwriting abilities, he says: “I met a lot of producers and showed them my music and got feedback, then fell into a dilemma. I realised that I had chosen a difficult musical direction and it shook me up mentally. I wanted to resolve it quickly, but it wasn’t coming out the way I wanted, so I felt ashamed and wondered, ‘Is this my limit?’ I’m only gradually overcoming this struggle.”

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Flying Solo
In 2018, five years after his BTS breakthrough, J-Hope debuted his first solo mixtape, Hope World. While he’s not the first of the group to step out on his own – the band’s two other rappers, RM and Suga, released their albums in 2015 and 2016 respectively – Jung’s effort is, perhaps, the most successful.

Self-described as ‘my calling card to the world’, Hope World peaked at number 38 on the US Billboard 200 and made the charts in nine other countries around the world. His next solo outing (Chicken Noodle Soup, a single in collaboration with US songstress Becky G) in 2019 would go on to break even more records, and raised his profile as the first BTS member to chart as a Billboard Hot 100 solo artist.

J-Hope and Glory The biggest money-spinner of K-pop phenomenon BTS is no slouch when sharing his success with the world gafencu (5)

Despite the success he has found outside the band’s purview, Jung is adamant that BTS will remain his priority. “The team always comes first, so I focused on our projects as BTS and tried to make time [to work on my own stuff] in hotel rooms, on the airplane, whenever I could find a few minutes,” he explains.

Hope for Others
As with many of his bandmates, J-Hope is a strong proponent of giving back to society. Over the years, he’s personally donated hundreds of millions of Korean won to various causes. He has championed an array of worthy initiatives – from supporting visually and hearing-impaired children and youngsters suffering from violence in Tanzania to boosting the welfare of minors impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic – it’s clear that the star’s ability to bring literal J-Hope (joy and hope) is not just limited to the musical sphere.

 

(Text: Tenzing Thoundup)

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Hallyu to the World: The rise and rise of Korean Culture

Back in 1960, South Korea was one of the world’s poorest countries. In the wake of the Korean War, the northeast Asian nation was so poverty-stricken that its GDP per capita clocked in at a meagre US$79. Fast forward six decades, and the country is on an incredible high. Having transitioned from a largely agricultural economy to a high-tech producer of semiconductors, phones and cars, it boasts the fourth largest economy on the continent (in terms of nominal GDP), lagging behind only China, Japan and India.

Home to such plugged-in conglomerates as Samsung, LG and Hyundai, South Korea has also spawned a whole new hit of global exports: Hallyu. If the term is new to you, chances are the phenomenon it represents is not. For the uninitiated, Hallyu is the romanised form of hanryu, the term for what has come to be known as the Korean Wave – the immense growth and export of the country’s pop culture to the world.

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When this movement first began some 20 years ago, it was quickly adopted by neighbours China and Japan, but today Western nations are equally enamoured with all things Korean, be it movies like the 2019 Academy Award-winning film Parasite, TV shows such as 2020’s Crash Landing on You and last year’s record-breaking Squid Game; music (think wildly successful bands such as BTS and girl squads Girls Generation and Blackpink); food, and even cosmetics.

The current global love for all things South Korean can be traced back to the turbulent times of the 1997 Asian financial crisis, when the nation took active measures to restrict cultural imports from Japan. To fill the resulting void, a new mission to foster and strengthen local culture and talent was initiated, including pouring funds into creative industries such as film and TV studios. High-quality Korean dramas were produced very cheaply, and these new media offerings rapidly gathered a fan base in China before reaching further afield. Thus, Hallyu spread to the West, piquing the curiosity and capturing the imagination of the ’90s generation.

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K-wave

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Many liken the beginning of the Korean Wave to the popularity that Japan itself experienced around that time, when anime, manga, J-pop music and such heavy hitters as Pokemon and Studio Ghibli gained cult status beyond its shores. However, the critical difference between them is that Hallyu managed to capitalise on the emerging trend of digital globalisation, and thus became accessible to a wider international audience.

As Margot Peppers, Consumer Trends Editor at Foresight Factory, explains: “[Japanese culture is] still seen as offbeat, quirky and cool to like, but it is not necessarily mainstream. [Whereas] there has been such a push for K-dramas and stories that are rooted in Korean settings but still have universal themes and archetypes that everyone across the globe can relate to. They are built on this accessible universality that has really resonated with people.”

K-beauty

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It’s no secret that standards of beauty are often set by what society sees in the media, and given the widespread dissemination of Hallyu, it’s not surprising that many young people want to mimic the pristine, pale skin of Korean celebrities, paving the way for the rise of K-beauty. The country’s cosmetics industry responded deftly, introducing a constant flow of new, innovative and sometimes unusual ingredients – snail slime, starfish extract, pig collagen and bee venom, to name a few – to serve up the Next Big Thing to consumers.

As a result, the South Korean beauty and cosmetics market now ranks among the top 10 worldwide. According to a study published by Portland-based research company Allied Market Research, the business was valued at US$10.2 billion in 2019 and is projected to grow to US$13.9 billion by 2027 – representing a staggering 36-percent increase.

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K-dramas

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South Korean dramas always had an avid fanbase across Asia and its diaspora population, but they have now hit their stride on a global scale. It began when streaming service Netflix decided to break into K-dramas – as the country’s TV series are affectionately dubbed – and debuted its zombie drama series Kingdom in 2019. Since each episode cost a whopping KRW 2.2 billion (about HK$14.4 million) to make, the investment into Hallyu’s popularity was a gamble, to say the least, but the show was received with great acclaim.

Next to break records was Crash Landing on You, which stayed on Netflix Japan’s Top 10 list for 229 consecutive days; it even became the sixth most-watched series in the US. But that all pales in comparison to the enormous cultural impact of nail-biting survival series Squid Game. Having been streamed for a whopping 1.65 billion hours in the first four weeks of airing, it is Netflix’s biggest series launch ever, outstripping nearest competition Bridgerton almost two-fold.

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Korean movies were no less in the spotlight, with comedy-thriller Parasite becoming the first non-English-language film to clinch Best Picture at the Academy Awards. Director Bong Joon-ho nabbed the Best Director prize as well. Then, last year, Minari – which follows the travails of a family of South Korean immigrants in rural ’80s USA – also garnered an Oscar (for supporting actress Youn Yuh-jung), prompting a new generation of Western cinephiles to explore other works by the creative talents in these films.

K-pop

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While Korean food, cosmetics and films have undoubtedly permeated throughout Asia and the West, there is one aspect of Hallyu that outstrips them all – K-pop. Thanks to its distinctive blend of addictive melodies, slick choreography and production values, and an endless parade of attractive performers who spend years in gruelling studio systems learning to sing and dance in synchronised perfection, K-pop has become a global phenomenon.

No band exemplifies the rise of this sensation than BTS; the country’s leading musical act raked in a massive US$4.65 billion for its economy in 2019. To put that sum into perspective, it equates to 0.3 percent of South Korea’s entire GDP, and more than what many small African nations earned within the same timeframe.

While naysayers may scoff that Hallyu is but a passing phase, the mercenary truth of the matter is that the staying power of the movement is reflected by the financial gains involved. What’s more, it’s not just the bands and the nation that are basking in reflected glory – it’s multinational brands as well, with everyone from McDonald’s and Nike to Louis Vuitton cashing in on collaborations with BTS and their ilk. As long as the attractiveness of the Korean Wave continues to enchant fans, the world will remain at their dancing feet.

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(Text: Tenzing Thondup)