J.Y. Park Shares the Real-Life Inspirations That Fuel His 25-Plus Years at the Center of K-Pop (2024)

J.Y. Parksays his rival is LeBron James. After a decade of Parkcontinuing hisstreak of craftingNo. 1 hits both as an artist andproducer while leading his namesake JYP Entertainment to become the biggest K-pop label in the world, thecomparison as a pop music MVPisn’t far off.

“I always study what LeBron is doingand I try to beat him,” the47-year-old singer-songwriter, producer and record executive says with a laugh. “Before it was Tom Brady of the New EnglandPatriots, but now it’s LeBron.Let’s see who survives longer!He’s in his 17th year in the NBA, he’s 35, I’m fighting with him. He’s my rival.”

With more than 25 years in his field, J.Y. Park has consistently been an valuable playerin anincreasingly global music industry with 2019 alone demonstrating his continued ability to craft chart-topping and crossoverhits, mold attention-demanding groupswhile still slaying the stage as an entertainer himself.As a definitive voice in the Korean-entertainment world,every word he shares abouthis company, his artists or himself is swiftly covered in the local press making less of a need for proper interviews.But theyear-end release of anew single and a concert series celebratinghislegacy has inspired this exclusive conversation withBillboard— his first proper chat with a reporter in years.

But even whengiven the opportunity to boast about himself, the great year his artists like GOT7, TWICE, DAY6,Stray Kids, ITZYand more have had,or about his new song“Fever”, Mr. JYP would rather talk about what gets himburningup on theinside, which takes him all the way back to his earliest inspirations.

While K-pop is considered a relativelymodern-day music scene — with most pointing to early ’90sartists like Seo Taiji and Boys’ boundary-breakingpop/hip-hop mashups as thegenre’sgenesis — Park’s musical inspirations are classic.He names Harlem’s famous Cotton Club as his“ultimate bias in entertainment” and two of its regular performersas his all-time favorite artists.

“Sammy Davis Jr.could dance, he could sing, his showmanship, his jokes, his comedy, he’s just an entertainer — he blows my mind,” Park says. “And the only people I can say are on the same level as, or better than,Michael Jacksonare the Nicholas Brothers. Watching them perform, sing and dance, it just makes my blood boil — in a good way — like, ‘Ihave to do something! I have to dance, I have to sing, I have to go on stage.'”

In addition to being aclassically trained pianist and studying music theorysince childhood,the Cotton Club’s vaudeville-era glamourmarks the “foundation of his art”while he watchesfellow genre-spanning producerslike Quincy Jones and Rick Rubin (“From Beastie Boys to Jay-Zto metal jams, Rick Rubin is sick”) as musical rivals.

While some K-pop labels are known for embracing certain genres or aesthetics, JYPE’s roster is more varied with fans often grouping its artists together based on their personalities or characterabove aspects like raw skills orvisual beauty. Park has echoed this sentiment in the pastas his label weaved its way through being a top 5 Korean entertainment through the years until overtaking the competition in 2018. As the company’s founder, Park chalks that up tosticking to a core message.

“I’m so thankful that as [the] decades have passed by, the general public has started to believe in the motivation of our company and what we stand for,” he says. “The fans and the publictruly believe what we say. I’m so happy that they believe what we see. They don’t think we’re cheating. Because why? We did it right.”

Park is adamant that all parts of asuccessful company should be held accountable and scrutinizedby the public — even its owner.

“That trust is everything,” he adds. “Success is like having a bigger microphone. Even if you have a huge speaker that can amplify what you say, but your life doesn’t back it up, they’re not going to listen.No matter what type of beautiful message you say in that speaker,if they think your life doesn’t back it up then you’re just a hypocrite. The whole point of being successful becomes in vain. It has to be aclean, righteous, respected journey. Even if you become No. 1 in the world, your journey needs to be respected or they won’t listen to your message.”

Park published a book JYP Ways that details his company’s vision, values and mindset, whichisrequired reading for all employees.

“I founded my company as a group of people sharing the same values and the same goal,” he says. “I was always curious about the definition of a successful company. What makes a company? A bunch of people on a payroll? If that’s a company, then if anybody gives one of your members a little bit more money they’ll leave, right? If the whole purpose was money and success, then your employer wasa thief.”

Park picksJYPE’s recent partnership with Make-a-Wish Foundation — and with a newly created joint project of Every Dreams Matters! (EDM) — as his highlight of 2019and talksexcitedly about the company’s plans to expand the collaboration. In addition toa percentage of JYPE profits going into the program, a new credit card will soon be introduced for fans tohave a percentage of their spending go towards granting the dreams ofkids facing critical illnesses. Park sees this type of company initiative speaking not just for the business, but for its young artists too.

“Kids who get their wish come true, the ratio of possibility of their chance to be cured goes up dramatically,” Park says. “[Something like this] can also help all of the mental problems that all theseyoung celebrities and entertainers go through, you know?American, Korean entertainers when they achieve fame, money and stardomwhen they’re young andthey just losefocus and meaning of their life. Having them be part of these programs that are helping unfortunate people, that’s when they can find a true goal of life instead of ‘I want to be a star’ or ‘I want to be No. 1.’ That can never be a true dream, that can never make you happy or be a motivation for the rest of your life. This is an education for our artists.”

Described as his vision of “21st-century vaudeville,” J.Y. Park’s latest single “Fever” combines his love of brassy beats with modern-day bass drops.

“I had to reinterpret the Cotton Club and drop that 808 in there,” he explains of the track that transitions from his Gene Kelly–like singing to sparse rap sections from featured artists Superbee and BIBI. “The bass is playing and suddenly, when they rap, an 808 plays the same notes. That’s when I got goosebumps while making it:when I heard the 808s hit the same notes as the upright bass, I was like ‘Damn.’ That’s when it became not just vaudeville, not just Cotton Club, but 21st-century Cotton Club.”

Watching old clips of performances from his favorite club brought theitch to get backon stage.

“Musically, I was feeling like I was burning,” he says. “There was a passion inside. When I go on stage, it islike a fever I have to let out … when I was a judge on [the South Korean singing competition show] K-pop Star, I always wanted to be a participant instead of a judge. I didn’t want to sit there and judge people. My comments can maybe help other kids who want to be artists, but judging doesn’t makeme lose my mind. When I’m on stage, I can’t remember anything until I come back down.”

Thechills Park felt while crafting “Fever” pop up occasionally in his work, most recently when he worked on TWICE’s latest single that hit No. 1 both in Korea and on the Billboard charts with“Feel Special.”

“When I first wrote ‘Feel Special,’ it was a different type of chill,” he says slowly, with atenderness in his speech heard when talking about the nine-member girl group. “Especially this year, there havebeen some hardships through a couple members of TWICE. When they have problems, they come to my room and they talk about it. A lot of times they cry.But when they told me it was the members who are right next to them who help them stand back up,I thought it was so beautiful; how much they really truly love each other and how they really, truly rely on each other. When they left, I just wrote the song right away at that moment.I was moved because the lyric and the melody were just so touching because it was based on a true story.I just sang it as a piano ballad.”

Park feels that those personal stories will be the differentiating factors in musicwhen trends can be spread and hitched toso quickly.

“It’s very funny, if you look at the Billboard [Hot] 100, it’s less diverse than 20, 30 years ago,” he explains. “Why is that? The information travels so fast globally that if something’s cool it affects all the other creators and they end up becoming similar. The fashion, the music, the dance, it’s goingto become more and more similar. What elements will make it different? It’s the true stories.”

J.Y. adds that “Feel Special” marked a turning point for TWICEwhere people were not as focused on the group’s looks, clothes or dance moves like past releases, but were instead moved by the music. “It’s a little bit sad, but I would have never written a song like that if they hadn’t actually gone throughthose hardships. Why would I?” he says, noting that the group was actually crying while recordingin the studio whichhe feels was transferred into the final product. “The word I saw most from listeners was that they were ‘touched.’ It’s still dance music, the girls are still dancing their asses off, but if you can touch inside people’s hearts; well, that’s a huge hit.”

Park gets excited about how he can guide other artists under the roster who have become known for their writing and producing their own material like boy band Stray Kids (“I’m trying to make them be themselves, butI just try to share a different angle and my experiences”) and JYPE’s first rock band DAY6 (“They’re kind of underneath the radar but selling out every single show in an hour; they’re going to have a solid career”).

But as anartist, songwriter and producer himself, Park has more than 55singles that have topped charts domesticallyor abroad. He’shonoringthat legacy with his No. 1 X 50concert series that wraps its Korean runon the final day of 2019.

The concert features his chart-topping hits as well as two that he holds dear to his heart that didn’t quite snag the top spot in his solo 2012 release “You’re the One” (where he needed to cancel plannedpromotions over hurt vocal chords) andSunmi‘s debut solo single “24 Hours”(“One of my favorites that I’ve done,” Park says of the 2013 cut). The one track he performs that he isn’t his own is theone hedescribes as “perfectly written”: Monica‘s early single“Before You Walk Out of My Life,” from her debut album, Miss Thang.He says the No. 1 from 1996 “was my ultimate role model as songwriting:a song with a strong beat that was good enough as a ballad.”

In the No. 1 X 50show Park performs “Before You Walk Out of My Life” right before hisballad version of TWICE’s “Feel Special” — aka the song with a strong beat but good enough to be a ballad.It shows that, more than two decades later, J.Y. Park hasn’t forgotten, and is still completing, goals he set out to do way earlyin his career.Next year,No. 1 X 50willmake its way to Californiafor a special U.S. show all continuing the unprecedented career trajectory of an industry and artistic visionary who refuses to define himself as anything other than a “leader.”

“Underneath the JYP Entertainment logo, there’s always a slogan: ‘Leader in Entertainment,’ and that slogan was there since the day we started,” he emphasizes. “We have to define, ‘What is a leader?'”

Mr. JYP never actually answers his question,but if a rarehour on the phone with him reveals anything, it’s that a genuine appreciation for music, goal-oriented business that goes beyond money,and songs that truly givesomeone a (good kind of)fever,alllead to the creation of a true leader.