The road to fame for most K-pop idols is fairly straightforward: impress judges during an audition for an idol agency, train for a few years and debut on an idol survival television programme. But Mino from boy band Winner walked a different road to stardom, making his debut twice and training under three entertainment companies before becoming one of the most talented rappers in the K-pop scene. Here’s a look at his life so far. His early life Mino was born Song Min-ho in the South Korean city of Yongin in March 1993. He has two younger sisters, one of whom is Dana from the short-lived K-pop girl group New. F. O. There are times when I wonder if I’ve been hiding, and there are times when I wonder if I’m living under a mask. So I thought I needed to look into myself more Mino Before Mino embarked on his journey to stardom, he was an amateur rapper. As “Big Boy Mino”, he also performed with Zico and Park Kyung, both of whom would later become members of boy group Block B. In 2011, Mino spent a year training with high school friend Pyo Ji-hoon, in the hope they would both debut with Block B. When Pyo was eventually removed from the debut line-up, Mino told his agency that he would also leave if his friend was removed, Pyo told the South Korean variety show Happy Together . Mino went back to training with Block B after Pyo called his parents and convinced him not to give up on the opportunity. Pyo would return to the group and debut as Block B’s rapper, under the name P.O. However, when Block B were about to debut with Mino in their debut line-up, he ended up leaving the group due to contractual issues, he told the variety programme We Will Channel You . Instead, using the stage name “Tagoon”, Mino made his debut as a rapper with the boy group BoM under the new idol agency Y2Y Contents. He spent about two years with BoM before leaving, feeling that his passion for hip hop was incompatible with BoM’s focus on ballads. Mino then joined YG Entertainment and made his debut with Winner in 2013 after his team won the idol survival show Win: Who is Next? against the performers who would become iKon , the successful K-pop group that made their debut in 2015. His role in Winner Mino’s stint as an underground rapper meant he had a strong foundation as Winner’s main rapper and sub-vocalist. But much has changed in Mino’s rapping style since his debut – his voice is coarser, and he liked his rap and hip hop to sound rough, he told the South Korean radio show Volume Up . His solo career Apart from his global popularity with Winner, Mino also has a successful solo career. In 2015, Mino went through 10 rounds of competition on Show Me the Money 4 , a South Korean hip hop television show. After a close final round against rapper Basick, Mino ended up being the first runner-up. A year later, Mino formed the hip hop duo MOBB with iKon’s Bobby , which lasted three years before disbanding. The duo released one EP, The MOBB , which topped Billboard’s World Albums Chart after its release. Mino co-wrote the lyrics to three of its tracks and wrote his solo track, Body . Mino made his solo debut in 2018 with album XX . Each of the album’s 12 tracks features Mino’s compositions and lyrics, but none stands out more than the lead single, Fiancé , which fuses hip hop with trot, a distinctively Korean genre developed in the early 20th century and which drew inspiration from Western and Japanese music. This shift in musical styles signalled a fresh start for Mino, who said in an interview with Yonhap News Agency that he wanted to move away from his hip-hop-heavy image. His image Mino has always been known for his fashion sense and love of art. His Instagram is plastered with his paintings, from pop art to abstract art, and selfies with a variety of looks. In December 2019, Mino’s paintings were put on display at the Seongnam Art Centre in Seongnam, South Korea. He also made his debut on the Louis Vuitton catwalk in 2019, showcasing looks from the fashion giant’s spring 2020 menswear collection. In his own words Mino incorporates his experiences and feelings into his lyrics. In Fear , a 2015 single featuring Big Bang’s Taeyang, Mino made references to what he saw as the exploitation of a young artist by one of his previous agencies. But he is also inspired by poetry. “I have fun with the metaphorical expressions. Poetry is like that. I get really impressed when I read fun or interesting poems,” Mino told Esquire Korea , a men’s magazine. “Writing rap lyrics is like melting a message into a short passage, so the shorter it is, the more difficult it is.” While his music and lyrics are deeply personal, Mino has said it was difficult to discover his true self. “There was a song I had to go deep into. I had to take an honest approach to myself, but I am confused whether this is who I am,” he told Esquire Korea . “It was difficult, but I wrote it somehow. But now, when I look deeply at myself to write such a song, I sometimes feel like I’m getting lost. “There are times when I wonder if I’ve been hiding, and there are times when I wonder if I’m living under a mask. So I thought I needed to look into myself more.”