[10LINE] G-Dragon

G-dragon
“I think I quickly need to find my style more than anything. (omitted) Of course, if I wanted to do, I could do things quickly but then I would be lacking in as many ways... Honestly speaking, I’m not all that satisfied with what I've shown you up till now”.” (G-dragon, during an interview at age 13).

Lee Hee-seong Producer of hip-hop compilation album “2001 Korea”. Kwon Ji-yong debuted under the name 2g-gon on this album. The title of a song he sang was ‘G-dragon’. It was Lee who recommended that he audition as a trainee at YG Entertainment (YG). Kwon decided that he would be a rapper when he heard Wu-Tang Clan’s album at friend Seung-chul’s house in elementary school. It is a well-known fact he was one of the members of a junior Roo’ra (a successful K-pop group) group and appeared in MBC’s “Popopo” (a popular kid show in Korea) and in the film “Taebaek Mountains”. G-dragon has said, “I think my mother wanted to put me on stage. I got here thanks to her but back then, I had a hard time.”

Yang Hyun-suk The big boss at YG. He “liked the vibe” of the then 13-year-old Kwon who came with his mother to his audition. When his mother was not in the room, he told Kwon, “When your mother comes back, tell her you really want to join us,” and brought him into YG family. Although after that, he left Kwon as a trainee for six years. During that time, Yang would give G-dragon a beat and tell him make a rap lyrics for it by the next day. Lyricist Kim Yee-na, who observed him at the time, said she was surprised “at how fast he worked and [when working,] at his great sense of directing [a song] to people whatever age they were." Through such a process, G-dragon mingled with musicians at YG while learning to write and produce music. G-Dragon once fell over while performing on stage, just a short time after joining YG. Singer Sean of group Jinusean told him that all YG artists had fallen on stage and told him, “You’re now part of the YG family too.”

Taeyang Member of group Big Bang and another six-year trainee at YG who trained with G-dragon. During that time, they polished their talent by going on stage for all kinds of performances with YG family. G-dragon is so close with Taeyang that he says, “When I can’t take care [of the team], he takes over as the leader. I am motivated and comforted by Taeyang, and I’m like a sunflower which grows watching the sun (i.e. “Taeyang” means “sun” in Korean).

Big Bang The pop group of which G-dragon is the leader. G-dragon and Taeyang are friends who have known each other at YG for six years, and T.O.P. is also an old friend of G-dragon. Although the other two members were selected through a survival reality show, the formation is closer to a group in which two younger members were added onto three close personal friends. Hence G-dragon naturally became the leader, co-produced Big Bang’s album with Yang and set the musical direction for the group. G-dragon played a big role in having Yang promote Big Bang as a different type of idol group and in establishing the group as one that is stylish. He is so set on looking at Big Bang from a producing perspective that he said, “A leader needs to take care of the team members but must also work as a strategist who can discover the focus of the group."

Ji-eun Big Bang's stylist. The group’s combination of hip-hop and street fashion set them apart from other idol groups. Ji-eun described G-dragon as having an almost "animal-like instinct" when it comes to fashion, creating the simplest, most ordinary items into his own style. This is representative of Big Bang’s fashion style. From a young age, he liked it when his mother made and bought him clothes. He also did not shy away from radical fashion, such as wearing woman-sized clothes, as long as it looked good. The kind of music he aspires is one in which “music and fashion go together” and “the performance and music, within one’s own style, make a deep impression on the public”.

John Galliano Fashion designer that G-dragon likes. G-dragon caused a sensation appearing on TV wearing a Galliano t-shirt with a sensational phrase written on it. G-dragon said that he did not think about the phrase because he was so excited about owning a Galliano item that he wanted. This incident is typical of G-dragon’s character. Growing up in YG, familiar with hip hop culture and sensitive to fashion, G-dragon quickly absorbed the global trend for music and fashion and incorporated it in forming an idol group. The idol groups started wearing clothes that appeared in fashion magazines, and Terry Richardson, who is famous for taking provocative pictures, photographed Big Bang. The appeal of G-dragon is his natural ability to digest non-mainstream trends outside of TV and the music industry, while working in the mainstream of pop culture. But because of this very ability, if he loses the balance between the two, he crosses a line that mass media finds hard to accept. In addition, his position as a fashion icon brings forth a synergy effect with his position as a musician. That is the extent to which the evaluation of G-dragon is closely linked with the evaluation of his music. He is the perfect character to receive two extreme judgments; either as a stylish musician or an overstyled idol who merely loves to show off.

MGMT An American rock band. G-dragon recently mentioned them as his favorite band. Other than them, G-dragon also likes Daft Punk because “it sounds the best on the runway”, he grew up with older boys who did hip-hop and at the same time listened to music by singers such as such as Roo’ra, Lim Chang-jung and Steve Yoo. G-dragon is a genre-free listener before he is a creator and it is reflected in his songs. He is a musician from the generation that grows up listening to the entire world's music on Internet and consumes New York fashion in Seoul.

Free Tempo A Japanese electronica musician. G-dragon’s “Lies” was accused of plagiarizing his song “Sky high” but the accusation was cut short with Free Tempo claiming it was not plagiarized. With a completely different progression after a short piano solo, it is hard to say the song was plagiarized. But the accusation of “Lies” displays a characteristic of G-dragon’s songwriting style. He grew up listening to a lot of music and was used to making rap and song lyrics on finished sound so it is highly likely he will bring ideas from songs he listened to. This is also the trend of modern pop music, where more and more musicians make music from ideas they get from the music they listened to. However, G-dragon is a musician who is particularly sensitive to trends and is that much quicker taking in music trends from overseas. What is important in G-dragon’s songwriting is how much creativity goes into developing an idea and how it is newly “created” within his own consistent style. In that sense, “Lies” is a case where his musical characteristic was most positively developed. This song was a combination of Shibuya-style sound and rap plus a chorus with K-pop style sensibility, and showed a structure strong enough to create several climaxes within the short song. On the other hand, if he does not develop his ideas well, it is very likely that is how much the quality of the song will decrease by.

Flo Rida American hip hop musician. G-dragon’s “Heartbreaker” was accused of plagiarizing Flo Rida's “Right Round”. To be brief, the problem with “Heartbreaker” lies in the level of its creativity, not that it may have been plagiarized. The problem is that impacts within the song are made at almost the same points as in “Right Round” and the rap flow in “Right Round”, where a slight difference in pronunciation changes the song, is similarly repeated in “Heartbreaker”. But it is not right to label G-dragon as a plagiarizing songwriter with “Heartbreaker”. Many of the accusations he received were undeserved and if G-dragon’s songwriting methods were to progress in a positive direction, it could bring birth to the kind of music that stands at the forefront of the K-pop trend, as Big Bang's hit song “Lies” were. Maybe what G-dragon needed was the time to develop his musical ideas more elaborately. It is important that “Lies” came out after Big Band had a break.

Sid Vicious Punk musician. The phrase ‘Too fast to live, Too young to die’ on G-dragon's tattoo is a line from “Sid and Nancy”, a movie about the life of Sid Vicious. “Even if wandering and despair were to take over me, it is too early to give up,” is how G-dragon interpreted the phrase. What he may need right now is to put this phrase into practice. Being an idol, a musician and a TV personality who wants to wear John Galliano's clothes, this young man has, at some point, been dangerously placed between a radical icon and troublemaker. And the recent plagiarism dispute has earned him quite a number of anti-fans. For a while, for whatever he does, he may simultaneously receive both support from fans and criticism from anti-fans. And the only way to overcome this will be to “do well” and convince people of his music. He is only 21-years-old right now.

Senior Reporter : Kang Myoung-Seok two@10asia.co.kr
Editor : Lynn Kim lynn2878@asiae.co.kr, Lee Ji-Hye