In 1997, J.Y. Park founded an entertainment company called JYP Entertainment and thereby laid the foundation for a great success story. Even in its early years, JYP produced hugely successful K-Pop acts such as g.o.d, Rain and Wonder Girls and has thus actively shaped the K-Pop industry. Today, JYP is a multinational company that acts not only as a record label and talent agency, but also covers areas such as event management, concert production and music releases. Just like back then, the entertainment company is still one of the leaders of the industry and by now counts many more successful K-Pop idols, such as Twice and Stray Kids, among its family.
Especially in recent years, K-Pop has spread beyond the borders of Asia across the whole world and is long past being a niche. If you want to learn more about the origins of this popular genre, you've come to exactly the right place. We'll introduce you to some of the biggest Korean entertainment companies, because they made K-Pop what it is today!
First, we told you the story of SM Entertainment, a veteran of the K-Pop industry. Today, we turn to the next leader of K-Pop:
JYP Entertainment
Let's be honest, if you listen to K-Pop, you can't get around groups like Twice, Stray Kids and Itzy, who regularly storm the charts and have hundreds of thousands of fans all over the world! They all debuted under JYP Entertainment. But the person behind it all is no less well known than these idol groups:
J.Y. Park - Founder of JYP Entertainment
Some call him by his real name, Park Jinyoung, while others use his stage name J.Y. Park or the abbreviation JYP. We're talking about a legend who is known not only as the founder of one of the biggest entertainment companies in the Korean entertainment industry, but also as a successful singer, songwriter and producer!
Park Jinyoung began his career in 1992, when he debuted in the trio “Park Jin Young and the New Generation”. However, the debut album “Floating Time” was not a success and the trio disbanded. For the next two years, Park Jinyoung applied to countless talent agencies, but got one rejection after another and also worked as a background dancer in between. One of the agencies where he tried his luck was SM Entertainment, then still known as “SM Studio”! He was rejected there too, but the founder Lee Soo Man afterwards asked Park Jinyoung whether he could have the song he had written himself and sung at the audition! Park did not sell him his song “Don’t Leave Me”, though, and that was a good thing. Instead, he released it in 1994 on his debut solo album “Blue City” and topped the charts! That was the beginning of a long, successful music career that continues to this day.
Already in 1997, he took a new step and founded his own label: “Tae-Hong Planning Corp”.
That same year, Park Jinyoung was asked by the agency SidusHQ - then still called “EBM” - to take care of their new boy group g.o.d as a mentor and producer. He ultimately produced the band's first album - Chapter 1 - together with Bang Si Hyuk, who would later become known as the founder of Big Hit Entertainment (today “Hybe Corporation”).
Bang Si Hyuk and Park Jinyoung had met in the mid-90s. When Park founded his label, Bang Si Hyuk joined as a composer and producer. However, he left the label in 2005 to found his own. At the latest since the success of g.o.d - the boy group became one of the most popular and best-selling K-Pop groups of the early 2000s - both Park Jinyoung and Bang Si Hyuk were known as hitmakers. To this day, they live up to that title.
Park Jinyoung wrote not only one hit after another for the artists on his label, but also for many other stars. He even worked with Western big names such as Will Smith and Jackie Chan!
Although Park concentrated more on producing music after founding his label, he still releases his own songs with success to this day, such as “Who’s Your Mama” (2015), “Still Alive” (2016), “Fever” (2019) and “When We Disco” (2020).
J.Y. Park is one of South Korea's most productive songwriters and earns with his songs as much as hardly anyone else. From 2011 to 2013, according to an income report by the “Korea Music Copyright Association”, he ranked first in copyright revenue!
Now that we've gotten to know J.Y Park better, let's turn back to his company:
Tae-Hong Planning Corp reached its first milestones during the 1st Generation of K-Pop.
Since its emergence in the 90s, K-Pop has been divided into generations. Each one is characterized by certain traits. The exact year in which a generation began or ended differs depending on the source, because opinions differ on this. The first generation began, by general understanding, in 1996 with the debut of SM Entertainment's boy group H.O.T. It is considered the very first K-Pop idol group.
In 1997, Tae-Hong Planning Corp signed its first artist, the solo singer “Pearl”. She debuted that same year. Pearl left the label three years later, but is still active to this day. In 2001, Tae-Hong Planning Corp was renamed and has been known as JYP Entertainment ever since! As you can imagine, the name comes from Park Jinyoung's initials.
In 2000, JYP signed a contract with the trainee Rain and celebrated a great success with his debut two years later! Rain's debut album “Bad Guy” was already a hit and earned the singer many newcomer awards.
Since 2000, JYP produced a few other artists such as the label's first boy group Noel (2003), the duo One Two (2003), the singers Park Jiyoon (2000), Byul (2002) or the twin duo Ryanga Rhanga (2000). However, these did not come close to achieving the same popularity as Rain or other stars of the first generation.
2003 - 2011: JYP establishes itself as the leader of the scene during the 2nd Generation of K-Pop.
In 2004, Rain became one of the biggest stars in Asia with his third album "It's Raining", and so carried the name JYP beyond the borders of South Korea and Japan. That same year, g.o.d switched from their previous agency to JYP Entertainment. In 2005, the solo singer Lim Jeonghee then debuted, but it was the new five-member girl group Wonder Girls with which JYP achieved its next big breakthrough in 2007. Wonder Girls, the entertainment company's first girl group, quickly became a massive hit. They were the first Korean group to manage to place on the US “Billboard Hot 100” charts! That same year, in 2009, the Wonder Girls were also part of the Jonas Brothers' world tour as an opening act!
In 2008, JYP's first survival show “Hot Blood Men” aired. In the show, male trainees competed against each other in order to debut in the end. Eleven of them were ultimately left and formed the group “One Day”. JYP then split One Day into two groups. The four-member ballad group 2AM debuted in July 2008 and the seven-member hip-hop group 2PM just one month later in August. Both groups were able to show success early on and still have a loyal fan base behind them today. 2PM attracted attention back then with a masculine image that was rather unusual at the time. JYP did not hesitate to take risks and, as we can see, they often paid off! By the way, 2AM was produced jointly by JYP and Big Hit Entertainment.
In 2010, the girl group Miss A debuted, three years after Wonder Girls. After JYP had produced three popular groups within two years, it was almost guaranteed that every new group from the entertainment company would also thrill the masses. And so it was! The title song “Bad Girl Good Girl” from the debut album “Bad but Good” topped the charts right away and earned Miss A their first music show win on July 22, 2010, 21 days after their debut. With that, they set a record at the time, because no girl group before them had taken first place on a music show so quickly after debuting. Their next albums also brought them awards and high chart positions.
2011 - 2020: 3rd Generation of K-Pop
From December 2011 to April 2012, the first season of the casting show K-Pop Star aired. The show caused a big stir, because the jury consisted of none other than representatives of the “Big 3”. This refers to SM Entertainment, JYP Entertainment and YG Entertainment. The three are considered the Big 3 because they have continuously produced successful artists since the 90s and have stood unchallenged at the top for many years. Park Jinyoung and Yang Hyunsuk, the founder of YG Entertainment, sat on the jury in person. SM Entertainment was represented by the experienced singer BoA, who debuted under SM in 2000. BoA was later replaced by You Heeyeol, the founder of Antenna Music.
The winner of the first season was the 15-year-old singer Park Jimin. She won a car, money and had the choice of which of the three entertainment companies she wanted to sign a contract with. Jimin chose JYP and debuted that same year with JYP trainee Baek Yerin as a duo called “15&”.
In 2014, JYP produced its first boy group since the debut of 2AM and 2PM 6 years earlier! The seven-member boy group named Got7 hit like a bomb. The debut album “Got it?” shot to number 1 on the Billboard World Album Charts and reached second place on the Korean Gaon Album Charts. And so the JYP family was joined by another successful band! In the same year, the third season of K-Pop Star aired and the winner Bernard Park, like Park Jimin two years earlier, chose JYP Entertainment. He made his solo debut in October.
With that, the entertainment company enriched the K-Pop industry with two more artists in one year. But JYP wouldn't be the label we know today if it had rested on its laurels. In 2015, too, the list of artists under JYP kept growing.
On January 9, 2015, JYP founded the sub-label "Studio J" with the goal of producing artists who release authentic music instead of the usual mainstream. On that very same day, the singer-songwriter G. Soul debuted under the sub-label. Eight months later, in September, the rock band Day6 made their debut. The band reached high chart positions with their debut album already and still counts today among the rock bands in the K-Pop industry that can successfully compete with the popular idol groups! Day6 is also managed by Studio J.
Just one month later, the new girl group Twice released their first album “The Story Begins”. The nine members had previously been selected through the survival show “Sixteen”. Sixteen was neither the first nor the last survival show that JYP produced to form a new group. With success! Twice is still one of JYP's biggest flagships today! The group regularly tops the charts, has won countless awards and is one of the best-selling K-Pop girl groups of all time! So even after almost 20 years, JYP still manages to thrill K-Pop fans worldwide.
The entertainment company definitely doesn't give itself a break and presented the fans with a new band again in 2016. This time, a Chinese boy group named “Boy Story” stepped into the spotlight. In 2017 it was “quiet” for a while, before a new survival show aired at the end of the year, from October to December. In it, the boy group “Stray Kids” was formed, who made their debut in March 2018 and, as expected, quickly celebrated great success. Today, the group is number 1 in the hearts of thousands of fans and without a doubt counts among the most successful K-Pop boy groups of our time!
Is Stray Kids the end of the third K-Pop generation or the beginning of the fourth?
More than with any other generation, there is disagreement about which year the fourth generation began. The disputed period is 2018 to 2020. The majority, however, would rather describe Stray Kids as part of the fourth generation.
In the first half of 2018, the numbers also showed that JYP Entertainment's efforts had paid off. For the first time, the company's total value surpasses that of YG Entertainment!
JYP owes this above all to the success of Twice and Got7. SM Entertainment held on to first place as in the years before. By August 2018, however, the value of JYP's shares rose even further and thereby earned the entertainment company the top spot! Today (2022), however, according to statistics, Hybe Corporation, the label of BTS, is in the lead. JYP, SM and YG follow in places 2, 3 and 4.
In 2019, JYP debuted a new girl group four years after Twice! The label knows exactly that K-Pop fans can never get enough of new talent! The four-member girl group Itzy, like their predecessors, broke records, and in their very first year at that. The debut song “Dalla Dalla” reached number two on the Billboard World Digital Song Sales charts and, on top of that, at the end of the year Itzy won more rookie awards at the annual Korean award ceremonies than any K-Pop girl group before them!
Even before Itzy's debut, JYP had also announced that a Japanese girl group was to be created the following year through a new survival show. So fans didn't have to wait long for something new. The show was called “Nizi Project” and was somewhat different from JYP's previous survival shows. Instead of pitting the agency's trainees against each other as before, Park Jinyoung held castings in various Japanese cities to discover new talent. After the first preselection, some participants were eliminated again in further rounds, until 20 applicants were left, whom JYP took with him to Korea. In the finale, which aired at the end of June 2020, JYP chose nine members who debuted in Japan in December under the name “NiziU”! With their digital pre-debut album, which was released just a few days after the finale of Nizi Project, NiziU already topped various Japanese charts. With such success, it's no wonder that JYP will produce a male version of the show in 2023!
Those who enjoy watching JYP's survival shows didn't have to wait until then, though. In 2021, there was already another new show. This time, JYP Entertainment teamed up with “P Nation”, the label of “Gangnam Style” singer Psy. In the show “LOUD”, Psy and Park Jinyoung recruited talented male singers and, in the finale, both selected members for a new boy group. P Nation's seven-member group “TNX” debuted in March 2022. The debut of JYP's five-member boy group is still pending, but it will probably happen at the end of the year!
But of course that doesn't mean that 2021 was already over for JYP after LOUD. In December, the rock band Xdinary Heroes released their digital debut single “Happy Death Day”. But that wasn't all. Just two months later, in February 2022, the first album of the new seven-member girl group Nmixx came out. The JYP family keeps growing and growing, and the entertainment company apparently has no plans to stop.
It pays off! In April 2022, new figures showed that JYP's market value alone rose by almost 772 million dollars in the first three months of 2022! The shares are worth more than ever before!
JYP Nation
That's the name of the music collective that unites all of JYP's artists. Over the years, JYP Nation has toured together several times and has also released Christmas singles, among other things.
JYP has let a few future stars slip away.
After all these years, probably nobody can doubt that JYP has an eye for talent. Still, it isn't always easy to recognize the potential in young people. Some of the hopeful applicants the label turned down later developed into big stars! These include, for example, IU, Xiumin (EXO), Sungjae (BTOB), Yuju (formerly of GFriend), Hyolyn (formerly of Sistar), Hani (EXID) and J-Hope (BTS)! Especially when it comes to IU, JYP's founder Park Jinyoung has often emphasized how much he would love to count her as part of his JYP family. In interviews, he joked that he would most like to fire whoever rejected IU at her audition back then. But as the saying goes: “You can't have everything.”
Subsidiaries
Given JYP's size, it's no wonder that the entertainment company has also founded several subsidiaries over the years. These include, for example, three foreign companies. The Japanese company JYPE Japan Inc, which is mainly responsible for NiziU and presumably also for the planned Japanese boy group, as well as two Chinese companies. One of them manages Boystory and the other the Chinese singer Yao Chen, who was part of the project group “R1SE” from 2019 to 2021 after winning a Chinese survival show. Of course, there is also the Korean sub-label “Studio J”, which currently manages artists such as Day6 and Xdinary Heroes, and the still young sub-label “SQU4D”, which was founded for Nmixx.
In addition, JYP has two branches in China (Beijing, Hong Kong), one in Japan and one in the USA. JYP also has its own department for producers and songwriters, one for film and series productions, and even a bar and two cafés in Seoul. The cafés are mostly used for meetings between Park Jinyoung and JYP's artists.
In addition, JYP has entered into many business partnerships, including with SM Entertainment, Big Hit Entertainment, Sony Music Entertainment, China Music Corporation or the American record label Republic Records. These partnerships help JYP above all to further promote its own artists.
But JYP also invests in good causes and, for example, works together with the Korean Make-A-Wish Foundation to support campaigns intended to benefit children with life-threatening illnesses. As you can see, the label has long been more than just a talent agency.
Social Media
On YouTube, Twitter and Co. you'll find official accounts for all of JYP Entertainment's artists. In addition, the label also has its own overarching accounts. where news about all your favorite JYP idols is gathered.
YouTube // Instagram // Twitter
You can also follow founder and singer J.Y. Park on social media!
YouTube // Instagram // Twitter // TikTok
Currently (June 2022), JYP Entertainment has the following artists under contract:
Groups: 2PM, Twice, Stray Kids, Itzy, Day6, Nmixx, Boystory, NiziU & Xdinary Heroes
Solo singers: Bernard Park, Yao Chen & J.Y. Park himself.
In addition, members of the idol groups who have released solo albums are of course also counted as the entertainment company's solo singers. These include several members of 2PM and Day6, as well as, most recently, Nayeon of Twice.
JYP's current artists include representatives of all four K-Pop generations. The label represents a piece of K-Pop history and is already a legend in the Korean entertainment industry. So it's still worth keeping an eye on the development of JYP Entertainment. We'll see what the label achieves in the future!
