PSY

PSY (born December 31, 1977, Seoul, South Korea) is a South Korean singer and rapper. Originally known in his country as a controversial and satirical hip-hop artist, he achieved international fame in 2012 with the music video to his humorous pop song “Gangnam Style,” which became the first video to have more than one billion views on YouTube.

Park Jae-Sang was the son of a successful business executive and grew up in Seoul’s affluent Gangnam (or Kangnam) district south of the Han River. He became interested in music as a teenager but, ostensibly as preparation to follow in his father’s footsteps, went to the United States in 1996 to study English before beginning business studies at Boston University in 1997. An admittedly indifferent student there, he transferred after a semester to the Berklee College of Music (also in Boston). He left without graduating and returned to South Korea in 2000 to pursue a music career. Taking the stage name PSY—a reference to his concept of himself as slightly “psycho”—he made his debut as a hip-hop artist in 2001 with the album PSY from the PSYcho World! Like many of his subsequent releases, it drew controversy because of its raw lyrics. The following year, after an arrest and brief detention for marijuana possession, PSY released the albums Ssa 2 (“Cheap 2”)—which, after a legal challenge based on its “inappropriate content,” was restricted to sale to adults—and 3PSY. He had a hit with “Champion,” a single from the latter.

PSY performed his mandatory national military service from 2003 to 2005. After his discharge he released Ssa Jip (“Cheap House”) in 2006 and began gaining more popularity with his appearances on television game and talk shows. His career was interrupted, however, after officials determined that PSY had neglected his duties while in the military (he had held concerts and performed on television). He was required to serve another term, which lasted from December 2007 to July 2009. Afterward he signed with one of South Korea’s largest talent agencies, YG Entertainment, on whose record label he released his next album, PSY Five in 2010.

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In July 2012 PSY released his sixth studio recording, PSY 6 Part I, which contained the single “Gangnam Style,” a lighthearted dance song that mocked the pretensions of people wishing to be associated with that area of Seoul. The video for the single featured a deadpan PSY performing a distinctive comic “horse-riding” dance at various incongruously unstylish locations, including a horse stable and a parking garage. Although other, more-mainstream South Korean acts such as Girls’ Generation, Rain, and Big Bang had achieved international success, none of them had broken through to the level of becoming household names. PSY’s song, however, quickly and unexpectedly caught on with a wide audience. Internet users popularized the YouTube video throughout the summer and fall of 2012 via multiple social media platforms, including Twitter, Tumblr, and Facebook. It ultimately became the most-watched video in YouTube history to that point, and sales of the single and the album took off as well.

With “Gangnam Style” a viral video sensation and the song topping international music charts (peaking at number two on the Billboard Hot 100), PSY spent the second half of 2012 traveling around the world, making public appearances and giving live performances. He signed a record deal with the American label School Boy Records in September. He performed at the February 2013 inauguration of South Korean President Park Geun-Hye, and in April he released a new single, “Gentleman,” that became another international hit. It reached number five on the Billboard Hot 100 and number one on Billboard’s Korea K-Pop Hot 100. The “Gentleman” music video set a new YouTube record with 38 million views in one day.

In addition, “Gangnam Style” again made news in 2014, when it reached an unprecedented two billion views on YouTube. It later surpassed three billion. PSY continued to release characteristically bawdy videos, including “DADDY,” which was featured on PSY 7th Album (2015), and “New Face,” from his eighth studio album, 4×2=8 (2017). He left YG Entertainment in 2018. The global success of “Gangnam Style” prompted South Korea’s culture ministry to award the entertainer the prestigious Okgwan Order of Cultural Merit in 2012.