Biography
Emerging among South Korea’s leading boy bands from the mid-2010s forward, iKON claimed the top spot on the Gaon album chart with their first full-length project, Welcome Back, issued in 2015 two years after the majority of the lineup had been unveiled as Team B on the competitive reality program WIN: Who Is Next. The group continued to occupy the chart’s higher tiers with the subsequent album Return, the New Kids series of EPs spanning 2018 and 2019, and later releases such as the 2020 EP I Decide along with Flashback in 2022.
B.I., Bobby, Donghyuk, Jinhwhan, Ju-ne (formerly Junhoe), and Yunhyeong first appeared collectively as Team B on WIN: Who Is Next, where they faced off against another YG Entertainment trainee squad known as Team A. Although they fell short in the final fan vote to the more seasoned Team A, the exposure cultivated a dedicated audience, prompting the release of their initial pair of singles that same year. The six members next headlined the follow-up program Mix & Match, during which additional trainees competed for spots in the act; after another fan vote that included two other contenders, Chanwoo joined as the seventh member.
Welcome Back arrived late in 2015 and debuted at number one on the South Korean album chart. B.I. handled full production duties for the project, while he and Bobby collaborated with a compact group of co-writers on every track. Laden with successful cuts, the album featured the chart-topping singles “My Type” and “Apology” plus five additional songs that reached the Top 20. A handful of singles surfaced across 2016 and 2017 as the group embarked on their first Asian tours, with a live album and two compilations appearing before the 2018 release of the number-one single “Love Scenario” and the proper follow-up album Return. Upon wrapping the New Kids EP series, iKON compiled those recordings into a full-length album in 2019; that year also brought two live documents drawn from their Japan tours of 2018 and 2019, as well as B.I.’s exit after YG Entertainment ended his contract.
The first post-departure project, the five-track I Decide EP, incorporated songs that B.I. had co-written and produced prior to leaving; it peaked at number three on the South Korean album chart. Following a relatively subdued 2021 that yielded only the single “Why Why Why,” iKON’s next major effort without B.I., the Flashback EP, came within a single position of another number-one debut in 2022.
B.I., Bobby, Donghyuk, Jinhwhan, Ju-ne (formerly Junhoe), and Yunhyeong first appeared collectively as Team B on WIN: Who Is Next, where they faced off against another YG Entertainment trainee squad known as Team A. Although they fell short in the final fan vote to the more seasoned Team A, the exposure cultivated a dedicated audience, prompting the release of their initial pair of singles that same year. The six members next headlined the follow-up program Mix & Match, during which additional trainees competed for spots in the act; after another fan vote that included two other contenders, Chanwoo joined as the seventh member.
Welcome Back arrived late in 2015 and debuted at number one on the South Korean album chart. B.I. handled full production duties for the project, while he and Bobby collaborated with a compact group of co-writers on every track. Laden with successful cuts, the album featured the chart-topping singles “My Type” and “Apology” plus five additional songs that reached the Top 20. A handful of singles surfaced across 2016 and 2017 as the group embarked on their first Asian tours, with a live album and two compilations appearing before the 2018 release of the number-one single “Love Scenario” and the proper follow-up album Return. Upon wrapping the New Kids EP series, iKON compiled those recordings into a full-length album in 2019; that year also brought two live documents drawn from their Japan tours of 2018 and 2019, as well as B.I.’s exit after YG Entertainment ended his contract.
The first post-departure project, the five-track I Decide EP, incorporated songs that B.I. had co-written and produced prior to leaving; it peaked at number three on the South Korean album chart. Following a relatively subdued 2021 that yielded only the single “Why Why Why,” iKON’s next major effort without B.I., the Flashback EP, came within a single position of another number-one debut in 2022.
Albums
Singles
