iKon (South Korean band)

iKON
iKon at a clothing campaign launch in 2015 From left: B.I, Bobby, Jinhwan, Junhoe, Yunhyeong, Donghyuk, Chanwoo
Background information
Origin	Seoul, South Korea
Genres	K-pop Hip hop
Years active	2015–present
Labels	YG Entertainment
Associated acts	YG Family, MOBB

Members	Jinhwan Yunhyeong Bobby B.I Donghyuk Junhoe Chanwoo

iKon (Hangul: 아이콘), stylized as iKON, is a South Korean boy band formed in 2015 by YG Entertainment. The group was first introduced in the reality survival program WIN: Who is Next as "Team B." After that, Team B went on to appear in the 2014 reality survival program Mix & Match, which determined the final seven-member lineup of iKon: B.I, Bobby, Jinhwan, Junhoe, Yunhyeong, Donghyuk and Chanwoo.

According to YG Entertainment CEO Yang Hyun-suk, the group's name derives from the intent to become an 'icon for Korea', hence the 'K'.^[1] The group made their debut on 15 September 2015, through the digital release of their first single "My Type" from their first studio album Welcome Back. Their first broadcast live performance was on 15 October 2015, on SBS's Inkigayo.

As of October 2016, the group has sold over 280,000 physical albums, and over 5.4 million digital records.

History

Pre-debut

Prior to the group's formation, group leader B.I featured on MC Mong's 2009 song "Indian Boy". He performed with MC Mong at the 2009 SBS Dream Concert, as well as on You Hee-yeol's Sketchbook.

Group vocalist Junhoe also made a pre-debut appearance aged thirteen on the SBS variety show Star King. He also competed on SBS's K-pop Star in 2011.

On 3 January 2011, B.I and Jinhwan joined YG Entertainment as trainees, as did Bobby a week later. The three trained together for a year and formed the basis of what was to become "Team B". On 18 April 2012, Junhoe and Yunhyeong joined Team B, followed by Donghyuk as the sixth and final member on 5 November 2012.

WIN: Who Is Next

In 2013, B.I, Bobby, Jinhwan, Junhoe, Donghyuk, and Yunhyeong competed as Team B on the Mnet reality survival show WIN: Who Is Next, competing against other trainees in "Team A" for the chance to debut as a group. The program involved three rounds of performances and public voting, after which Team B eventually lost to Team A, who debuted as Winner.^[1] During the program, Team B released two singles: "Just Another Boy" and "Climax".

On 9 November 2013, the members of Team B appeared as backup dancers in Taeyang's music video for "Ringa Linga".

Show Me The Money 3

In 2014, members Bobby and B.I competed in the third season of the rap contest Show Me The Money, at the same time as Mix & Match was being filmed. Both shows aired on Mnet. B.I was eliminated from the Top 8 in the seventh episode of the series, while Bobby went on to become the season's winner. During the show, both members released solo tracks to domestic chart success; B.I released his own composition "Be I", while Bobby released four tracks, "L4L (Lookin' For Luv)", "연결고리#힙합 (YGGR#hiphop)", "가 (GO)", and "가드올리고 Bounce" (Raise Your Guard and Bounce).

On 12–13 April 2014, Team B performed at YG Family's Japan Tour at the Osaka Kyocera Dome.

Mix & Match

In June 2014, Team B appeared in the reality survival program Mix & Match, a follow-up to WIN: Who Is Next. The aim of the show was to determine the final lineup of iKon. While Bobby, B.I, and Jinhwan were confirmed members, the remaining members of Team B competed against three new trainees; Jung Jin-hyeong, and Yang Hong-seok, and Jung Chan-woo, who had previously appeared on Korean television as a child actor.^[2] It was reported that 150,000 fans applied to attend the final performance of the show, and before the announcement of iKon's official lineup, YG Entertainment's blog server crashed. The final lineup contained the three remaining members of Team B, with the addition of Chanwoo. Following the program's success, the iKon members held fan meetings in Korea, Japan, and China. In September, approximately 40,000 Japanese fans applied for 2,000 tickets at a fan meeting at Osaka Tojima River Forum, while more than 50,000 Chinese fans applied for their fan meeting in Beijing. The program was aired on 29 December 2014 on the CS channel in Japan.

On 12 August 2014, Winner debuted with the single "Empty," which was composed by B.I and PK, and written by B.I, Song Minho, and Bobby. On 18 October 2014, B.I and Bobby featured on Epik High's track "Born Hater". B.I created the song's hook at the request of Epik High member DJ Tukutz. B.I and Bobby continued to participate in Epik High's "Born Hater" stages at the 2014 Mnet Asian Music Awards and the SBS Gayo Daejeon. Bobby also featured in the songs "Come Here" with senior rappers Masta Wu and Dok2 and Hi Suhyun's "I'm Different", both to chart success.

On 15 December 2014, iKon performed as the opening act at Bigbang's Japan Dome Tour 2014-2015 X. On 28 January 2015, Billboard listed the group as one of the "Top 5 K-Pop Artists to Watch in 2015". They were the only group on the list that had yet to debut.

2015: Debut and Welcome Back

Following several postponements, iKon's official debut was announced on YG Entertainment's website for 15 September 2015. It was revealed that the group would be releasing their debut album Welcome Back in two parts, with 6 of the 12 tracks being title tracks. The first half of the album, Debut Half Album, was set to be released on 1 October, followed by the Debut Full Album on November 2. The track listing for the first half-album was released on 24 September. Group leader B.I was credited as the producer and co-composer for all of the album's tracks, with B.I and Bobby contributing to lyrics for all tracks and vocalist Junhoe participating in the composition of title track "Rhythm Ta".

iKon debuted with the 'pre-single' "My Type" was released with a music video on 15 September 2015. Within 24 hours of its release, the music video for "My Type" surpassed 1.7 million views on YouTube. The group took their first music show win with the single on 26 September 2015 on MBC's Music Core, even though they had yet to make their first official live appearance. On 24 September, "My Type" achieved a 'triple crown' on the Gaon chart, having taken the number one spot on the digital, download, and streaming charts simultaneously for the 39th week of 2015. On 18 September, the single became number one on the music video chart of Chinese music streaming sites QQ Music and Youku. iKon also trended on Weibo, where they were reportedly searched 1.3 billion times.

iKon's Debut Half Album was released digitally on 1 October. The group held their first concert, Showtime, on 3 October at the Seoul Olympic Gymnastics Arena. The show sold out 13,000 tickets. The concert's taking place at the largest concert hall in Korea was unprecedented for a new K-pop group. SHOWTIME was broadcast live through Naver's V App and streamed by over 500,000 viewers.

On 4 October, a day after their debut concert, the group made their music show debut on SBS's Inkigayo with "Rhythm Ta" and "Airplane", receiving their third music show win for "My Type" in person. On 8 October, they won on Mnet's M!Countdown with "Rhythm Ta". According to the Gaon Music Charts, iKon topped the weekly album sales charts with the first half of Welcome Back for 4–10 October.^[3]

During October, iKon embarked on a series of Japanese fan meetings titled "iKontact" in in Tokyo, Aichi, Fukuoka and Osaka, attended by 26,600 fans. At the end of that month, iKon received a MelOn All-Kill Popularity award^[4] and had sold 82,208 copies of Debut Half Album - Welcome Back.^[5] On 28 October, it was announced that the full album's release would be delayed to 14 December, with two additional digital singles released on 16 November.

Two digital singles, "Apology" and "Anthem", were released on 16 November. "Apology" took the number one spot on Gaon's digital chart for the 48th week of 2015. On 24 December, three new singles, "Dumb & Dumber", "What's Wrong?" and "I Miss You So Bad" were released.

2016-present: Asian tours and new singles

On 17 March 2016, YG Entertainment announced that iKon would be holding their first Asia Tour iKoncert 2016: Showtime Tour with dates in Taiwan, China, Hong Kong, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia. On July 1, their agency announced the band's second Japanese arena tour entitled iKon Japan Tour 2016. The tour was set to visit five cities for a total of 14 concerts with an attendance of 150,000 fans. Later, the company announced the addition of two shows to be held in Tokyo due to more demands in tickets thus, raising the attendance to 176,000 people from six cities. The completion of the second tour pegs the band's total concert attendance during its debut year at 322,000.^[6] In November 14, YGEX announced a second leg of iKON Japan Tour in 2017 due to the success of the arena tour, and to visit Yokohama Arena for the first time. The second leg is expected to draw 120,000 fans from three cities, to rise the attendance of the tour to 296,000 from 25 shows.^[7]^[8]

On 30 May, the group released the digital single "#WYD" (short for "What You Doing"). The song debuted at number three on the Gaon Digital Chart. On August 10, the release of iKon's first original Japanese single Dumb & Dumber was announced. The single was released on September 28 with a CD+DVD version and a CD version. It debuted at number one on both the Oricon Daily Single Album Chart and the Oricon Weekly Single Album Chart.

Members

B.I was born Kim Han-bin (Hangul: 김한빈) on (1996-10-22) October 22, 1996^[9]
Jinhwan was born Kim Jin-hwan (Hangul: 김진환) on (1994-02-07) February 7, 1994^[10]
Yunhyeong was born Song Yun-hyeong (Hangul: 송윤형) on (1995-02-08) February 8, 1995^[11]
Bobby was born Kim Ji-won (Hangul: 김지원) on (1995-12-21) December 21, 1995^[12]
Donghyuk was born Kim Dong-hyuk (Hangul: 김동혁) on (1997-01-03) January 3, 1997^[13]
Junhoe was born Koo Jun-hoe (Hangul: 구준회) on (1997-03-31) March 31, 1997^[14]
Chanwoo was born Jung Chan-woo (Hangul: 정찬우) on (1998-01-26) January 26, 1998^[15]