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Tamar Herman

“I’m very happy these days,” Bang Yongguk says.
Happiness is frequently on his mind of late, the 31-year-old having fought hard for it after a career full of ups and downs since bursting onto the South Korean music scene in 2011.
“Music is my everything,” he declares over a video call from Seoul. “I feel the biggest, greatest sort of happiness when I make and create music, so I think that’s where this feeling of joy comes from.”
His album 2, fittingly released on March 2, 2022, is a new sort of offering from the man best known for his gruff, dark take on hip-hop.


With more pop, electronica, and rock elements, 2 is the antithesis in style and substance to his first album, the darker, more intense Bangyongguk from 2019.
Three years and a pandemic later, and having finished his mandatory service in South Korea’s military, Bang has a new perspective on life that overflows in 2.
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“Throughout working on the album there were many times I had to actually completely redo a song or completely do away with a song, so the fact that I went through those processes to result in what we’re hearing now also makes me happy.”
While Bang is pleased with the album, which went through multiple delays as he struggled with finding the right style and songs to present, 2 isn’t necessarily overwhelmingly effusive.
The single Up is a sexy spin on the affection of a man falling in love, and features a music video inspired by his love of surrealist artist Marcel Duchamp.
I don’t really want to say that I’ve matured. But … I have learned … that you have to be genuine and honest
Bang Yongguk
Other songs on the album, like the aggressively hypnotic 2021 pre-release Race and the jazzy Shut Up, express his drive and wish for people to stop talking about him.
To Bang, 2 isn’t a reversal after his earlier, intensely depressive and angsty releases, and it’s not undoing the feelings he revealed on Bangyongguk and in other solo offerings: it’s just another facet of who he is after more than a decade in the spotlight.
“My first album, that was very realistic in the sense that you know, it portrayed very realistically the situation and circumstances I was in,” Bang says. “Compared to that album, 2 portrays a different side of me, and I think it’s not as dark as the first album.”

The distinction, Bang says, is that Bangyongguk reflected his internal struggles, and 2 is more about the external forces, apparent to all the world.
“All the music I make is always a story about myself,” he declares. “However, if the first album was more about my deepest thoughts, and what was going on internally, this is more about the story of my life experiences. So although they’re both part of me, I think they represent slightly different meanings.”
To listen to Bang’s storytelling via albums, you have to know the history of his career.

He first came to the attention of music fans as a deep-voiced rapper who was a perfect collaborator on Song Ji-eun of Secret’s Going Crazy then on his first song, I Remember, with Yang Yo-seob of Beast, both out in 2011. Bang was the leader of rising boy band B.A.P after it debuted in 2012.
Things were going well, swiftly and successfully, with the band touring regularly and seeing lots of love from fans. But in 2014, the band went on a sudden hiatus as members sued management company TS Entertainment for mistreatment and lack of payment.
In 2015, B.A.P reached a settlement with TS and returned, but never reached their previous highs. The next year, Bang went on hiatus from the group itself amid reports he was struggling with his mental health.

Since then, he has returned to music making on his own terms, releasing music as a soloist, and with the rest of B.A.P until the band separated from each other and from TS in 2018.
2 is the first album released by Bang under his own company, Consent, which he hopes will work with other artists also trying to find their own way to creative happiness, whatever that means to them.
The music and art, and even a documentary, have come out of his experiences, and he wants to create an environment for others to develop on their own terms.
But don’t think because Bang has been through a lot that he’s a person reborn: 2 isn’t the second coming of Bang – think of it as too, as if he is saying, “This too is Bang Yongguk”.

“I like to think of myself as being the same person from when I debuted a decade ago to now,” he says.
He reveals that he still thinks fondly of his time with B.A.P, regardless of the tumultuousness, and is particularly fond of Young, Wild & Free, the single they released after their hiatus.
“I don’t really want to say that I’ve matured. I don’t think it’s appropriate for me to just say that. But a big lesson I would have to say I learned throughout my career is that you have to be genuine and honest. Whenever you approach music, that’s what you have to do.”


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K-pop rapper Bang Yongguk on his new album 2 and being happy and joyful

South Korean musician Bang Yongguk talks about happiness, fame and his new album 2. Photo: Netflix

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The Korean hip-hop artist who shot to fame in B.A.P talks about his second album and how it’s less dark than his self-named first album
He spent time finding the right songs and styles and is pleased with how the album has turned out. ‘I feel the biggest happiness when I make music,’ Bang says



The Korean hip-hop artist says his second album is less dark than his first, and he’s been feeling happy a lot lately. ‘Music is my everything, so I think that’s where this feeling of joy comes from,’ he says.


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