j-hope
정호석- Name
- Jung Ho-seok
- Born
- 18 February 1994
The main dancer of BTS, from Gwangju, who took his solo work from a 2018 mixtape to his own stadium shows in 2025.
Their story
From Gwangju to Hope World
Jung Ho-seok grew up in Gwangju and became the main dancer of BTS. His first solo verses went up free on the group's SoundCloud, but his real start came with Hope World in March 2018, a mixtape led by the colourful "Daydream". A year and a half later "Chicken Noodle Soup" with Becky G took him onto the Billboard Hot 100, something no BTS member had done alone before.
Jack in the Box
In the summer of 2022 he changed tone. The pre-release "More" was dark and loud, and the album Jack in the Box followed with "Arson" as its title track. Two weeks later he closed the last night of Lollapalooza from the main stage, the first South Korean artist to headline a major American festival. The documentary j-hope IN THE BOX filmed both the album and that night.
Around his service
"on the street", a lo-fi hip-hop track with J. Cole that he wrote for fans, came out weeks before he enlisted in April 2023, and Hope on the Street Vol. 1 arrived during his service with a docuseries of the same name. After his discharge he went the other way: "Sweet Dreams" with Miguel was a pop R&B love song, and "Mona Lisa" a dance single with a video set in an art museum.
Where he is now
His first solo world tour, Hope on the Stage, opened in Seoul in February 2025 and ran through North America and Asia. It ended with two nights at Goyang Stadium in June, and the first of them fell on the day "Killin' It Girl" with GloRilla came out. Since then the focus has been BTS: ARIRANG was released in March 2026, and he is on stage with the other six for the tour that started in April.
