I thought it would only be fair to dedicate an editorial on K-Pop’s other big agency, YG Entertainment. After all, YG artists have contributed quite a bit to this year’s line-up of scandal and controversy.
Although I had been a public SM stan, I also harbored a secret love for YG Entertainment back in the day. When I say back in the day, I mean before BIGBANG and 2NE1, when Perry was the head producer and G-Dragon was just their cute mascot. This is one of my all time favorite K-Pop music videos and it perfectly sums up the YG that I loved:
I still get excited when I watch this music video. At my young age, they seemed so bad ass; Perry with his colored contacts, everyone and their guns, Baekkyung‘s cool cigarette flick, and Yang Hyun Suk with his 180 degree cameras and matrix bullets. The reason why I kept my admiration for YG Family a secret is because, well, no one would believe me. Back when they looked like that, I looked like this:
When Noona Was No One’s Noona
Me loving SM’s bubble pop made total sense, but no one would believe that I had strong woman feels for Danny Im (who, with Teddy, had to be the coolest Korean-Americans at that time) or that I thought Lexy was the baddest female or that I thought frosted tips with sunglasses looked cool.
It wasn’t until I was older that I felt comfortable singing (rapping?) this song at noraebang.
(That and Jinusean‘s “” and 1TYM‘s “” were my signature songs. Wow, I really want to go noraebang right now.)
See that little guy? That’s G-Dragon and his kiddie rap, back when YG rappers used excessive hand motions. If you watch some other old school music videos you see little Taeyang pop up too. Now they’re chart-toppers and fashionistas. I guess we all grew up.
YG changed a lot in the past few years and the changes have brought upon a lot of success and money for the company. Those gun-toting assassins are now famous dads, G-Dragon and Taeyang hit puberty, and the company exchanged Korean-American rappers for boy and girl bands. With every change, my affection for them dimmed. They became less K-Rap and more K-Pop, and I just didn’t have room in my heart for two mega K-Pop companies.
YG Entertainment is now just as much of a staple to K-Pop as SM Entertainment is, but with their success and growth they have also started making questionable decisions. This year alone YG has given me quite a bit to work with, but I’m going to point out a less serious one:
YG has been repeating the same lie for the past three years.
The earliest article is from November of 2011! Since then girls have been revealed, girls have dropped out, and YG debuted a boy group (or two if you count both Team A and B) and some “K-Pop Stars.” So much has changed that we have to question everything that has been said about the group. Is G-Dragon still producing the album? Is the “no plastic surgery clause” still in effect? Is YG sort of hoping we’ve forgotten all about their previous announcements?
So when YG anounced, again, that they were going to debut the girl group in November, I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who gave a skeptic and noncommittal shrug. I want to believe that it’s really going to happen, but then again…Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me five times, STOP IT NO MAKE IT STOP.
So for everyone’s sake, YG better debut this girl group in November.
CallMeN00NA is an editor at Soompi who never said she was good at rapping, just that she liked to do it at noraebang. You can talk to her on Twitter, follow her on Instagram, and ask her questions.
*The opinions expressed in this editorial are solely those of the author.