From YG to ‘KPop Demon Hunters’: Teddy’s quiet K-pop revolution

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When the soundtrack to Netflix’s hit animated film “KPop Demon Hunters” first dropped, quite a few longtime K-pop listeners immediately thought of one name: Teddy Park, better known mononymously as Teddy.

Love it or not, many found the hitmaker’s fingerprints hard to miss. Teddy — alongside his team at The Black Label — helped produce some of the film’s most iconic tracks, including “Golden” and “How It’s Done.” Fans online were quick to label the Blackpink-esque charisma of fictional girl group HUNTR/X as unmistakably “Teddy-style.”

The propulsive beats, electronic sound and addictive hooks of the songs had clear echoes of some of K-pop’s biggest hits — Blackpink’s “Kill This Love” (2019),  2NE1’s “I Am The Best” (2016), or BigBang’s “Fantastic Baby” (2012). The resemblance is no coincidence: Teddy produced all of them.

In fact, Teddy, whom some have compared to the Western pop hit machine Max Martin, is behind a number of the past decade’s most defining K-pop hits — all of which incorporate his signature bombastic blend of hip-hop and EDM.

Yet despite his growing influence, the man himself largely remains an enigma. Outside of Korea, in particular, many may not be aware of the fact that his career in the industry began not behind the scenes, but onstage, as a member of boy band 1TYM — one of Korea’s pioneering hip-hop acts that topped charts in the early 2000s.

With Blackpink’s latest single, “Jump,” produced by Teddy, currently dominating global charts and The Black Label’s coed group Allday Project gaining traction, more and more people are asking: Who exactly is the man behind the industry’s most era-defining smash hits?

 

From Seoul to the States — and back again

Teddy, born Park Hong-jun, is one of K-pop’s most influential producers. For more than a decade, his iconic sound has defined the swaggering edge of YG Entertainment and much of K-pop’s global appeal.

However, the man behind so many chart-topping tracks has largely steered clear of media exposure.

Teddy was born in Seoul and moved to New York during middle school. In 1997, he first encountered Yang Hyun-suk, founder and chief producer of YG Entertainment, to audition for the agency in Los Angeles — a meeting that would define his musical career for the next two decades.

Teddy debuted a year later as the leader of YG Entertainment’s boy band 1TYM. Until it halted group activities in 2006, 1TYM stood out as one of the few acts to fully embrace the hip-hop sound in the late 1900s and the early 2000s, best known for hits like “One Love” (2000) and “Hot” (2003) — both written by Teddy.

Among the group’s hits produced by Teddy, “Kwaejina Ching Ching” (2000) blended elements of Korean traditional music with the hip-hop genre, a stylistic experiment he revisited with Blackpink’s 2022 hit “Pink Venom” as well.

In a 2009 interview with Starnews Korea, Teddy reflected on his early days as a rapper, saying that he had been happy — but added he was “even happier as a producer than an idol,” as his personality was better suited to playing a supportive role behind the scenes.

While best known for being the central figure in YG sound, Teddy also worked with various other artists outside the agency, venturing into various genres, with hits like Sunmi’s “Gashina” (2017) and Uhm Jeong-hwa’s “D.I.S.C.O” (2008). He also collaborated with singer Lee Hyo-ri, featuring in her 2005 track “Anyclub.”

Teddy’s personal life remains largely private, but he was publicly in a relationship with actor Han Ye-seul from 2013 to 2016. He was briefly linked to Blackpink member Jennie in 2017, but YG Entertainment denied any relationship between the two and threatened legal action.

Sound of YG

Teddy’s work as a producer began with contributions to 1TYM’s second full-length album, “2nd Round” (2000), and early YG Family tracks. But it wasn’t until the explosive debut of girl group 2NE1 in 2009 that his name started to garner major media attention.

Yang acknowledged Teddy as the mastermind behind 2NE1, crediting him not only for the quartet’s massive hit songs “Fire” (2009) and “I Am The Best” (2011), but also for its overall aesthetic. His work also fueled the success of BigBang and most notably, Blackpink.

For Blackpink, Teddy isn’t just a producer.

“Teddy’s basically the fifth member of Blackpink,” member Jisoo jokingly said during a news conference for the group’s Netflix documentary “Blackpink: Light Up The Sky” (2020) in October 2020.

“Teddy knows each one of us even better than ourselves,” she explained.

But it wasn’t just knowledge of his artists that helped Teddy build his reputation; he also capitalized deftly on worldwide trends. For example, “Famous,” the debut hit of rookie co-ed group Allday Project, which blends Brazilian funk — currently a very hot genre — with trap and R&B. Blackpink’s early hits like “Ddu-du Ddu-du” (2018) also incorporated trap, a style that was cementing its mainstream popularity through the mid- to late-2010s in the United States.

“He’s able to notice the trendiest elements in global pop and interpret them through his own distinctive lens, which made him a significant figure in K-pop’s evolution,” said Shim Jae-geol, music critic and CEO of K-pop marketing firm JX United.

Teddy is behind most of Blackpink’s signature tracks, from “Ddu-Du Ddu-Du” (2018) and “How You Like That” (2020) to the group’s latest hit, “Jump.” In 2017, the Korea Music Copyright Association named him Korea’s highest-earning songwriter.

Yang named Teddy his “successor” due to his central role in YG’s global rise, telling OSEN in 2015 that the producer would “take up the musical torch” of the agency if he ever retired. But that was before Teddy launched his own venture — The Black Label.

Flying solo

The Black Label, which Teddy founded in 2016, began as a subsidiary of YG Entertainment, with former YG producers, including Kush and 24, signed on.

But YG’s stake in the company gradually decreased from 45 percent in 2016 to 14.55 percent as of March after The Black Label secured enough venture capital funding to go independent.

The Black Label currently manages artists such as Jeon Somi, who signed with the company in 2018, BigBang member Taeyang and Blackpink’s Rosé. Dancer Leejung, who choreographed “KPop Demon Hunters,” is also under its wing.

In recent years, Teddy has been focusing on developing new talent. The label launched its first girl group, Meovv, in September of last year.

Initially shrouded in mystery as part of intentionally vague branding, the group’s low-profile strategy drew skepticism until earlier this year. But Meovv pivoted with its first EP, “My Eyes Open Vvide”; Following the May release, it ramped up YouTube content and TV appearances, clinching its first music show win with the prerelease “Hands Up” in May.

Then came Allday project, a rare mixed-gender group, in June, bringing even more attention to Teddy’s ventures. The Black Label followed the industry’s debut formula to a tee — capitalizing on Teddy’s brand power as a producer and tapping into the buzz surrounding “chaebol idol” Annie. All five members were introduced simultaneously to establish a unified group identity from the outset, combined with well-crafted visuals and sound that together create a consistent brand.

Shim credited Teddy’s distinctive sense of aesthetics for his lasting influence.

“The fact that Allday Project is a mixed-gender group might seem refreshing,” Shim said. “But it explains only the barest surface of what really made its debut successful.”

But now that Teddy is fully severed from the agency where he built his career, he’s faced with a new challenge: cementing his reputation, and securing a lasting track record, as a solo executive producer. While the combined success of “KPop Demon Hunters” and Allday Project’s debut has certainly boosted his presence in the industry, his artists are all still at the very beginning of their careers. The Black Label now needs to secure the footing of two rookie groups simultaneously — which is no easy task.

“It will take some time to see if the group will be able to recreate the success of other K-pop hit groups,” said NH Investment & Securities analyst Lee Hwa-jeong in a report issued on July 22. “But in order for the industry to evolve, it needs these kinds of experiments.”

BY SHIN HA-NEE [shin.hanee@joongang.co.kr]