What Makes Jackson Wang a Magic Man?
Jackson Wang casts a spell.
In an incredibly windy April weekend in the California desert, the 28-year-old made history as the first Chinese singer to perform on the main stage at Coachella. Jackson’s set was part of the 88Rising Head in the Clouds Forever slot at the festival, an hour-long triumph of Asian musicians who left art on the stage.
“We are making history tonight,” Jackson said midway through his set.
He wasn’t wrong. Jackson’s set was alongside several renegades on the peripherals of K-Pop, J-Pop and mainstream pop/ hip-hop. Utada Hikaru, the Japanese superstar, made their festival debut, while CL brought together 2NE1 for one of the most surprising, affirming moments at Coachella since Beyonce’s homecoming.
Jackson’s performance was the first chapter of “Magic Man'', the forthcoming album that Jackson promises will show “the new me”. This album, Jackson says, will highlight his authenticity as both an artist and a person. The highlight of his stage at Coachella was “Blow”, the lead single from “Magic Man”, a song that builds from a rumbling guitar to a rhythmic shouting and stomping that, indeed, blows up in the chorus.
For the set, Jackson was dressed in all-black jacket, ripped shirt and black jeans with a singular blood red glove on his left hand. With his gray hair and ripped physique, he didn’t look like a K-Pop idol, as much as a mythical god. At times, the dust and wind that swept provided a wind machine that resembled the grittiness of the singer’s new video for “Blow”.
Though the set was only ten minutes, Jackson was the commander of this performance in the same way a conductor might lead an ensemble. Yet in this performance, the singer brought his ensemble to the brink of chaos and there, somewhere between mayhem and beautiful spectacle, he asked the audience to witness something: The proof of what made him so magical.
Jackson Wang debuted as a member of the boy group GOT7, under JYP Entertainment, in January 2014. The group heralded a shift to a third generation in K-Pop, an industry that at the time was increasingly pulling global talent. GOT7 was one of the first groups to capitalize on the soft power of South Korea by pulling members in from across from the globe. Jinyoung, Youngjae, Yugyeom, and Jay B hail from South Korea, while Mark Tuan is from America, Jackson from Hong Kong, and Bam Bam of Thailand.
In the group’s time with JYPE they released bangers. “Just Right”, “Page”, and “Hard Carry” are some of my favorite songs in K-Pop, period. But in 2020 the group chose to not renew their contracts with JYPE and, instead, strike out on their own.
But GOT7’s story does not end there. Instead, Jay B negotiated the group’s right to their name and performance rights, ensuring that they could continue to promote together as GOT7. This week the group released their first album that they have full creative control over. (Spoiler: It’s a great one.)
In the year that followed his exit from JYPE, Jackson sought to find his artistic voice, free of interference. Last spring, he dropped “LMLY” (Leave Me Loving You), one of his smoothest singles and a career highlight. The video, directed by Jackson and produced by Team Wang, was inspired by Hong Kong cinema.
“For the video, I came up with a treatment that follows my previous release ‘Pretty Please’,” Jackson explained, “still staying in the time zone of ‘90s Hong Kong movie style. The way I decided to shoot the video is more towards [a] movie structure this time, rather than the musical choreography performances like I always do.”
The storyline, Jackson said, was “another love story”. He plays the role of a dishwasher who falls in love with a girl that comes into his restaurant. The video, like the cinema that inspired it, ends with a twist. “Everything about this love story only happened in my mind,” he said. “It’s my imagination. It never happened. She doesn’t know me. And,” he sighed. “Lastly, she got married.”
The first time I watched the video, I catch the twist until the last moment, as Jackson’s character runs after his crush’s car who is now a married woman. Then I rewatched it, and found the clues. “LMLY” was the most layered work Jackson had released, and it demonstrated an artist who wanted his work to be layered. There is a point in me not catching the nuances on first watch: Jackson wants us to return to his work.
While Jackson had big ambitions for the year, “LMLY” was the only work he released. But he didn’t reveal until this month why.
“Last year, I was in a mental breakdown, with depression and huge anxiety because everything changed around me,” he revealed in an interview with Variety. “It got to a point where I’ve been in this industry for eight, nine years: it’s always traveling; show after show; programs; commercials; tour; it’s almost in a loop. I started to feel lost. I don’t know what more can I do and what should I do? I don’t even know who I was. I started drinking every day, but I was still working.”
Growing up in a family of athletes, Jackson’s perspective on mental health struggles was to simply “overcome” it. “I never believed in talking to other people or to friends. I always solve my own problems when I’m stressed out by myself, because what’s the point? It’s my problem. It’s not anyone else’s problem.”
So, like many of us do, Jackson closed himself off. He told himself he would push through and deal with it. While his friends and team pleaded with him to take a break, he worried he would never be able to come back if he stopped. What if taking a break meant he was lazy? The anxiety to stop plagued him as much as the worry of what would happen if he kept working at the same pace.
Finally, Jackson’s friends and team intervened. They wanted to hear what was on his mind; they could see how troubled he was. “We sat down and I didn’t know there was power in those words they shared. It feels so magical to me. This is magic. I never used to believe in this for all my life, then I accepted it,” he recalled. “Whoever I was in the past, whatever I had with all my music or whatever — me, Jackson Wang as a character, as an artist, as a person — I wanted to leave that behind and start fresh.”
Inspiration came to him quickly. He was shifting and changing quickly, but he wanted the art to reflect who he was becoming. “Then we created the album, and it’s called ‘Magic Man.’”
Throughout the creation of “Magic Man”, Jackson wanted to explore what happens when we tell our stories authentically. There is power when we share what is inside of our heads; when we let others love us. Toughness doesn’t protect us, Jackson learned, it only isolates us.
“I’ve been doing music for eight years and I’m always in a position that even daily, I’m exploring. I used to not sing. I haven’t been in a vocal lesson. I have zero experience in vocal lessons until this year. Back in [Korean entertainment company] JYP, I was trained in dance. I was trained in rap. I was trained in martial arts. I wasn’t a vocalist.” Jackson surprised himself. Could he hit that note? What about creating a song with this sound? Something unlocked inside of the artist when he finally let others in: Possibility.
The singer’s style evolved, too. In the video for “Blow”, which reminds me of a grimier Rocky Horror Picture Show, Jackson wears a corset. Actually, he STUNS in the corset. Here, the masculine meets the divine feminine, and Jackson allows himself to be a portal for sensuality, regardless of what you think of gendered clothing. “We’re doing art; we’re entertainers; we’re supposed to have fun with it. Because art itself is very personal,” he explained.
“Magic Man” comes at a time when men are being asked to be mindful about our mental health. There is power in asking for help and acknowledging we can’t do this alone. Humans are not wired to carry our trauma and our pain by ourselves. When we share our stories we create a synergy that resembles magic. Jackson’s art is a testament to this.
In the coming months, Jackson has hinted at a world tour and he will return to Head in the Clouds this summer to headline the festival in Pasadena, California. But his ambitions are both long-term and big picture. He wants everyone, no matter where they live, to know his music. He wants to make “my people in the East” proud.
Until then, he is sure that no matter what happens with “Magic Man” he will have no regrets. There is no such thing as a regret when you are authentically yourself.
