Making Way for Kwon Ji-Yong
Screenshot from “UNTITLED, 2014”; YG Entertainment
G-Dragon is at the top of his career and simultaneously drowning in his fame on his last EP which bears his birth name “KWON JI-YONG”. “I’m living like my childhood wish/ Even though I’m now living like all the people I used to watch on TV,” he admits in the pre-chorus of “SUPER STAR”. “But I’m sad for some reason/ The loneliness lingers.”
Though he was only 28-years-old when he released the EP, G-Dragon was a veteran in music who had spent over two decades grinding towards success. But Kwon Ji-Yong, beyond the stage, was an introverted man who was consumed in loneliness and depression The magnetic force we know as G-Dragon, these songs revealed, was only a persona. “KWON JI-YONG” was a rebuke towards his persona as an idol and a self-evaluation of who he had become.
G-Dragon’s fame is intrinsically linked to his group BIGBANG, a group who shaped the sound of K-Pop throughout the 2010s. “BIGBANG practically made BTS,” BTS’ rapper Suga acknowledged to BIGBANG’s Taeyang on The Daechwita Show this year. But G-Dragon grew bigger than even his own group, who were once hailed as the Kings of K-Pop.
When G-Dragon released “KWON JI-YONG” in 2017, he was one of the most celebrated soloists - period. “G-Dragon is a phenomenon, bigger than the K-pop scene. He is fearless and punk,” Diplo succinctly told Complex magazine in 2013. That year he sold out New York’s Barclay Center, a huge feat for a soloist in a time before K-Pop crashed Stateside. He’s the only soloist to ever receive an MNet Asian Music Award Artist of the Year award, and in 2016, Forbes named G-Dragon as one of the most influential people under 30.
G-Dragon stood out because he was never going to fit into the perfect idol image. He took pride in this, though. “I was born calm and collected,” he raps as if on defense in the track “BULLSHIT”. “My destiny is bullshit/ I’m pure, Korean and limited edition.”
Image from KWON JI-YONG album; YG
G-Dragon never claimed to be a good guy, and this afforded him some artistic freedom. “Sorry, I’m a bad boy,” he bluntly offers - without much apology - on the BIGBANG song of the same name. But as he became a more exacting writer, G-Dragon’s lyrics probed why he stood so far apart from the center. “Nurse heal me/ I’ll pay you more” he asks on “OUTRO 신곡 (DIVINA COMMEDIA)”, before questioning himself. “I’m barely 30/ Am I weird?/ I’m normal, right?”
The same year G-Dragon released “KWON JI-YONG”, he embarked on the ACT III M.O.T.T.E. world tour, a three part concert that showcased three diverse portions of G-Dragon’s short solo career. This show was both an artistic statement and a vehicle for G-Dragon to question who he had become. This struggle is exemplified in the arc of the show, which takes audiences through G-Dragon’s five year solo career.
When he performed “SUPER STAR '' on that tour, the isolation was the set’s cornerstone. Dressed in bright red, GD’s stage rose to a platform high above the audience to reflect both his stature in music and his separation from others. Near the end of the performance, his voice crumpled into a shrill plea: “I need somebody/ Any goddamn body.” And even though we could hear his pleas, G-Dragon was just out of reach to touch. That, too, was by design.
“I went to this concert,” a fan wrote on a YouTube clip of the song’s Seoul performance. “I really felt the pain when he was singing this song. You couldn’t breathe.”
Promo image for M.O.T.T.E. ACT III WORLD TOUR; YG
It’s not an exaggeration to say G-Dragon has spent the majority of his life on camera. There’s a solo performance from a 2014 BIGBANG concert that I love which demonstrates this fact poignantly. “What’s your name?” a voice asks in the video. “I’m Kwon Ji-Yonng and I’m eight years old,” a tiny voice responds.
“What do you want to do,” the MC asks Ji-Yong.
“I want to be a kid who’s good at rap,” the boy responds. The video cuts to a clip of Ji-Yong as a member of Lil Roora, a children’s rap group that goes surprisingly hard for kids no older than third grade. Ji-Yong is immediately recognizable. His performance style, fidgety and blistering, is there, which is remarkable because it barely changed over the next decade. And then, there on-stage, is 24-year-old G-Dragon performing the same choreography and song.
“While others grew, I listed stocks,” G-Dragon flexes on “OUTRO 신곡 (DIVINA COMMEDIA)”, the third track of “KWON JI-YONG” before taking a swipe at his height: “That’s why I’m a little short.”
Those stocks came from a childhood spent working. “I started out as a child actor. Back then I didn’t have a manager or company and I couldn’t even dream of having a stylist,” he explained in 2017 .”My mom made and bought the clothes I would wear.”
One of the reasons G-Dragon is so easy to spot in those early Lil Roora videos is a questioning, often paranoid look in the boy’s eyes that persisted into adulthood. “Who the fuck are you,” the piercing look seems to ask.
“I’m not sure if they do this in the States, but in Korea, until high school, on your graduation diploma there’s a line that states your future goal,” G-Dragon said in 2013. “Kids write ‘president’ or ‘astronaut,’ or whatever. I always wrote: ‘singer.’” Making music felt like his destiny, and hip-hop captivated him. He called Wu Tang Clan, “a biblical holy piece of music.” They inspired him to rap. “I’m not fluent in English now, but back then I didn’t know anything. I would write down the lyrics to ‘C.R.E.A.M.’ in Korean—not translating it, but phonetically writing out each word.”
G-Dragon’s love of rap gifted him with an education in storytelling. When he was placed in BIGBANG as the group’s leader, G-Dragon was given the rare chance to write lyrics for the group. He was vocally proud of this fact, once even - wrongly - asserting that he is the only K-Pop artist given the opportunity to do so. But his point stands: K-Pop, especially in the second generation, was highly manipulated and controlled. It was unique, shocking even, that someone as outspoken and flawed as G-Dragon would be allowed to express themselves.
When I think of G-Dragon at his best, I am reminded of how adeptly he blended these contradictions of K-Pop’s shiny veneer with hip-hop’s poetic confessionalism. His gritty voice often stabs like barbed wire, but he can also hit a sweet falsetto like he does in the B-side “Today”. In these instances he still catches me off-guard with how sweet he can sound.
By the time G-Dragon released his first album “Coup D’etat” his mission was to dismantle the very idea of K-Pop. His labelmate Psy had already broken through in North America with “Gangnam Style” and many critics felt that G-Dragon had, out of anyone, the best opportunity to stake his position in pop music.
“The meaning of ‘Coup D’Etat’ is rebellion, it’s overthrowing a government,” he said. “Just perceiving the world, I wrote the lyrics with that in mind. I want to continuously instigate, whatever it may be.”
Five years later, he would be struggling to keep his head above water.
YG Entertainment
What makes “KWON JI-YONG” a compelling album has unfolded over time. In the past six years, G-Dragon has only released two songs, “Still Life” with BIGBANG and a cover of Elvis Presley’s “I Can’t Help But Falling in Love”. It’s hard to know what G-Dragon is thinking these days, or what kind of music he is driven to make. Interviews with the rapper are scarce. For those curious, you can check out his choices for Fashion Week, but I want to hear G-Dragon go deeper. The questions G-Dragon posed about fame and mental health on his last EP still linger. G-Dragon’s silence has left us with a long ellipsis, one that only makes me curious to close with each year.
His persona, once scorching, now feels private and introspective. Yes, he still encourages us to “put your middle fingers up” in the opener of “KWON JI-YONG” but he also sounds utterly lost on tracks like “UNTITLED 2014”. “Please just once/ If I can see you,” he tells an ex on that song, “I’m okay with losing everything I have.”
G-Dragon’s show, ACT III M.O.T.T.E, was an opportunity to expand on who Kwon Ji-Yong is, and to perhaps, prime fans for a new kind of artist. “Kwon Ji-Yong is an introvert who has a lot of thoughts and is someone who wants to lean on family and friends," he told Elle that year. What I hear most when I listen to the songs from this year and when I read his interviews is the search for lost time. Who would Kwon Ji-Young be had he not become a child star? What if he was a normal teenager, able to fuck up, go to school, date and screw around, like the rest of us?
"Kwon Ji-Yong is someone who is looking to discover his existence off stage by having the time to lean on others,” he said in the same interview. I feel a lot of empathy for G-Dragon when I see how time took from him and just how abnormal his life was growing up.
"I'm Kwon Ji-Yong and also G-Dragon,” he explained in one VCR segment. “Many people know me as G-Dragon, that's true. It feels a bit weird to introduce myself, I'm not sure how to introduce myself."
There have been clues as to what’s next for the artist. In January, G-Dragon released a New Year’s greeting video and promised a new a album is on the way. “2022 was a time to recharge,” he said and added with a quick smile, “I’m really healthy!” What is conveyed through his silence is that these years away were necessary to restore the personhood of Kwon Ji-Yong. After years of smashing every goal post placed in front of him, G-Dragon seems content to finally live life on his own terms. For that reason, he’s staged the ultimate coup: One where he chose himself over fame.
