Seo TaijiLeader
정현철- Name
- Jeong Hyeon-cheol
- Born
- 21 February 1972
Played bass in the rock band Sinawi before the group; solo since 1998.
Their story
A bassist and two dancers
Seo Taiji had played bass in the rock band Sinawi before he teamed up with the dancers Yang Hyun-suk and Lee Juno. Their first album came out in March 1992, and in April they performed "Nan Arayo" on an MBC talent show. The jury gave it the lowest score of the night. Viewers disagreed. By December the newspapers were writing about a rap craze among young people, and the song had been at the top for months.
Two million and a ban
The second album, in 1993, became the first Korean album to sell two million copies. On "Hayeoga" Seo laid a traditional Korean melody over heavy metal. The third album took aim at the school system with "Classroom Idea". Then came trouble with the censors: the ethics committee banned the lyrics of "Regret of the Times", so the fourth album carried it as an instrumental. The fan backlash over that ban helped end pre-release screening in 1996.
Rap in Korean
Seo wrote and produced the music, and he rarely stayed in one genre for long. The debut was rap-driven dance-pop; later albums moved through rock and metal, and "Come Back Home" brought gangster rap to Korean TV in 1995. Critics point to one thing above all: they showed that rap could work in Korean, at a time when many doubted it.
After 1996
On 31 January 1996 Seo told a press conference in Seoul that he wanted to go back to being an ordinary young man, and the three flew to the United States. He returned as a soloist in 1998. Yang founded YG Entertainment, Lee started his own agency, and agency-trained idol groups such as H.O.T. and S.E.S. took over the charts. There has been no reunion. For the 25th anniversary in 2017, BTS remade "Come Back Home" and shared a stage with Seo.
