Growing Older with Jay B and Jinyoung’s JJ Project
The Jay B Press Pause Project
In celebration of Jay B’s first European tour “Tape: Press Pause”, I’m writing about some of the best moments of his career. Tickets are on sale now at Onion Production’s website!
Even before they were idols, Lim Jae Beom (who would later be known as Jay B) and Park Jinyoung were best friends.
Both boys were average students who rebelled against the wishes of their parents to make music. The eldest could often be found in train stations across Seoul dancing as a b-boy, while the younger one worked to convince his umma that he could make it as an idol. They are both, to this day, quiet, observant types who prefer to be left alone to make music or work. But in 2009, the boys won an open audition to become trainees at JYP Entertainment. From the start, the boys were thought of as a duo who would work together.
The first time audiences met Jay B and Jinyoung they were already playing a version of themselves. In the spring of 2012, the pair starred in Dream High 2, a KBS idol television show, alongside several idols, including Hyolyn of SISTAR and Jiyoung of T-ARA. The show, most notably, was produced by Park Jinyoung, the founder of JYP Entertainment, and it was a star vehicle to promote a future project for the boys.
The drama was not a huge success, but it did give the boys time to hone their skills as all-around performers. Crucially, the show also gave Jay B and Jinyoung a cushion for a fanbase.
“The drama really helped me a lot. First of all, it was a great opportunity for a rookie just to be known in front of the camera and through TV,” Jay B said in an interview when the group debuted. “And it was even better because I felt fun in acting.”
Five months after Dream High 2’s premiere, JYP Entertainment, under the direction of CEO Park, gave the duo its blessing to debut. Jay B and Jinyoung were placed together as a hip-hop group called JJ Project, and across two EPs spread out over five years, they explored the excitement and uncertainties of growing up. It’s a familiar tale, but one that is rarely explored with authenticity in K-Pop. Jay B and Jinyoung wanted to change that.
There is perhaps no producer in K-Pop more reveretial to music history than Park Jinyoung. He deliberately counts American soul labels like Motown as the inspiration for his sound. The Wonder Girls were Park’s most apparent tribute to the sound of Black American R&B music. When the group released “Nobody” in 2009, they were styled like The Supremees and the song’s production reminds me of The Crystals’ “Da Doo Ron Ron (When He Walked Me Home)”.
JJ Project, like the Wonder Girls, is also grounded in music history. But for this group, Park reached back into his own music archive. JJ Project most closely resembles DEUX, a duo whose members were Kim Sung-jae and Lee Hyun-do. DEUX was one of the first groups to bring hip-hop to Korea in 1991. Thirty years later, their music is still the architect for the collage effect K-Pop extrapolates. Take the duo’s single “In Summer”, a song that I’ve heard on TikTok frequently this year, and that still sounds like an earworm to thai day. DEUX paved the way for singers like Park to debut as a "crazy, lunatic hip-hop artist from the Ivy League". They were his contemporaries and his sunbaes.
While twenty years would separate the two groups, JJ Project’s concept pays homage, in my mind, to the brilliance of Sung-jae and Hyun-do. Jinyoung even resembles a young Sung-jae in the video.
JJ Project’s first single “Bounce” is a punchy introduction to audiences. The video opens with the sound of a class bell and Jinyoung (then known as Jr. because Park called him his “junior”) throwing his papers into the air, grabbing another boy by the collar of his shirt and jumping onto his desk chair. Jay B (then known as JB), adorned in an icy necklace and camo with bleached yellow/ orange hair, looked on in amusement before joining his friend in youthful mischief.
“Our song will set you free,” the duo declare as they lock arms. It’s a cheesy song, and one that some K-Pop fans joke about is the boys’ “dark past”. But there’s also a wholesomeness to it that is reflected by the time it was released. K-Pop was still finding its footing and producers like Park were still trying to formulate how to appeal to a global audience beyond Korea.
The group’s concept was youth, but the boys articulated that they wanted to grow older together with fans. “JJ Project means that we will grow while interacting closely with our fans,” Jay B said, noting that the word “project” didn’t mean they were a unit. He promised that he would blossom as an artist over the next ten to twenty years and he wanted his fans to stay by him. Both Jinyoung and Jay B had bigger ideas than they could article.
JJ Project in 2012; JYP Entertainment
JJ Project went on hiatus for five years following their debut. But the hiatus was for a good reason. In 2014, Jinyoung and Jay B debuted in GOT7. Jay B was chosen as the group’s leader and almost instantly, GOT7 became one of the most popular boy groups of K-Pop’s third generation. They released absolute bangers like “Just Right” that helped K-Pop reach a large global audience thanks to members from China, North America and Thailand.
But in 2017, JYP announced that JJ Project would make a comeback. The timing felt right: Both men were now in their early twenties, an age where their childhood friends were now graduating from college and pursuing careers. Jay B and Jinyoung’s challenges were still present even if they were idols. They had the same questions as all of us: Who did they want to become? VERSE 2, the second EP, explores what youth looks like as we approach adulthood.
“This album is much more gentle,” Jinyoung described in promotions. “It’s a mature JJ Project. You might cry listening to it.” He laughed as he said this but then said, “[I think] you’ll relate to it because it talks about life.”
Jay B and Jinyoung wanted to create something that would be meaningful for listeners who likely felt as confused as they were about where their lives were headed. “We put real stories in [the album],” Jay B said at one point.
They were nervous, Jinyoung admitted, about how this album would be received. “Originally, five years ago, JJ Project's music was upbeat. It wasn't really different from GOT7 music,” Jinyoung explained. But the pair wanted JJ Project to reflect their growth since debut. “The two of us are naturally sincere and quiet, when it comes to our personalities.” The music, they felt, should portray this quiet nature.
They were especially proud of the title song “Tomorrow, Today”. “It talks about youth having to know and decide their future tomorrow when they don’t even know what today looks like,” Jinyoung said.
If “Bounce” celebrated the fearlessness of youth, “VERSE 2” portrays the uncertainties that arise as we grow older and the mask of safety that youth provides us slips off. “Why are you telling me to choose when I only have one eye open?” Jinyoung asks in the first verse. “The questions are getting scarier/ With an anxious heart I’m standing in front of the next decision”
Jay B and Jinyoung chose to rely on storytelling for the song’s music video. Unlike most K-Pop videos, which often look like they take place in an alternate universe, “Tomorrow, Today” exists in everyday life. To portray the journey to adulthood, Jinyoung and Jay B walked along rolling hills and laid in fields with grass that reached their waists. The looming mountains of Korea were their backdrop. Jay B explained that the group wanted to make “a road movie” of two young men wandering through the countryside. “We felt like we were on vacation when we shot it,” he said.
Courtesy of JYP Entertainment
What most intrigues me about JJ Project is what they could write about if they released an album today.
In the years since VERSE 2, Jinyoung and Jay B’s lives have changed considerably. In 2020, they left JYP Entertainment but retained the rights to GOT7’s name. This year they made a comeback with a new self-titled album and a fan meeting concert that lasted three hours. Jinyoung has focused on acting, but plans have been made for him to release a solo album in the spring of 2023.
Jay B has been a machine with creating music since going solo. In 2022 alone, he’s released three different projects: His solo work “Be Yourself”, his indie work under the name “def.”, and GOT7’s album. He writes and publishes poetry on Instagram. This December, he is touring Europe for the first time. The man is not stopping.
Yet I know there are perspectives only Jinyoung and Jay B could have if they came together to write again. Who are these men who are now only one year away from 30? How have their fears shifted or given way to confidence as they’ve grown artistically? JJ Project is still listed under Jay B’s bio on Instagram.
Perhaps fans do have one reason to hope for a third album, perhaps titled VERSE 3. This year, the pair attended W Korea’s Hallowen party together and after walking the red carpet separately they found each other inside. Jinyoung then raised his phone and took a selfie of the two handsome men in suits.
When he uploaded the photo to Instagram stories, Jinyoung only needed one caption: “JJ”.
Jinyoung’s Instagram Story
