AKDONG MUSICIAN SIGNS CONTRACT WITH YANG HYUN-SUK AND JOINS YG

The winner of K-Pop Star season 2, Akdong Musician, will be joining YG Entertainment after signing a contract with the agency.

Through an official report, YG announced on May 24, “We cannot not reveal the details of the contract but we have been discussing this with the two singers and their parents. Now we have successfully ended the negotiation and in a few days, the contract will be signed.”

The contract signing came late compared to the contestants of season 1 because Akdong Musician are still minority. Thus all the process had to be discussed with the parents first, but since they currently reside in Mongolia, the contract signing was delayed. YG, despite the delay, welcomes the two musicians with open arms.

Akdong musican said, “We believe that YG Entertainment would be the best agency to support our music. We want to produce good music in the great environment that YG provides for their musicians.”

The biggest reason Akdong Musician chose YG as their agency seems to be that the two artists have an experience of working with YG twice during the K-Pop Star program. They have seen with their own eyes the systematic structure within the agency and the professional system the agency employs. The two musicians also met with more than 10 main YG producers for their performances, so they are familiar with the staff members as well.

K-Pop Star, SBS’s Survival Audition Program, gives the contestants a chance to become either SM, YG or JYP’s artist. The competition is extremely fierce, but this feature is what differentiates the program from other talent show programs. In season 1, the winner Park Jimin now belongs to JYP, and the latest winner of season 2, Akdong Musician, chose YG.

YG’s CEO Yang Hyun-suk kept an eye on the amazingly talented Akdong Musician throughout the show and often commented that “their music is completely organic – uncontaminated and pure. Music experts trying to polish their music might actually work as a disadvantage for them.”

About signing the contract with the two musicians, he said, “YG will function as a picture frame that will protect the freely painted work. We are only going to be the frame and the glass, not trying to repaint the artists’ work. We aim to preserve the pureness and the genius of Akdong Musician without trying to embellish their talent.”

In season 1, YG successfully signed the contract with the second winner Lee Hi. The 16 year old artist, after joining YG, released 3 songs in just 7 months, all of which swept across music charts and music programs on national television. She is now the most successful talent-show-born artist in South Korea.

Akdong Musician is widely loved for their fresh music that crosses the border of all music genres, including the songs of previous generations. Every song they released ranked No.1 in online music charts and they stay at the top for a long period of time. They already have a solid fan base. Their commercial jingle for “Bean rice cone shaved ice” that was released just yesterday instantly became No.1 in whopping 8 online music charts.