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Our star, Lee Taeyong, is a South Korean rapper, songwriter, dancer, and vocalist. Most known as Taeyong, he is a member and leader of the K-pop boy group NCT and part of the main rapper and dancer lines of the supergroup SuperM, both under SM Entertainment.
His path to becoming an idol began back in 2012, when Taeyong was only a second-year high school student. At that time, casting directors from the so-called “Big Three” entertainment agencies looked for talents in Seoul. While walking on the streets, a casting director found Taeyong and tried to convince him to audition, but he declined the invitation. The “big three” are SM, YG and JYP Entertainment, but Taeyong had no idea about it and thought they talked about the most famous Korean broadcasting companies (KBS, MBC and SBS). The casting director persisted and bought him toast as a way to convince him, so Taeyong thought they might be good people and agreed to try!
Knowing only the national anthem, which he sang in his audition, Taeyong went to the SM building. When asked to dance, he did the only thing he knew: a popping dance! And with that, he was chosen to be part of SM’s trainee programme.
Nowadays, Taeyong is praised and recognised by professionals for his incredible dancing skills, but he struggles a lot with dance. According to his old dance instructor, Taeyong was not a good dancer in the beginning. He was even told he would probably never make his debut because of that. However, Taeyong has always been a determined person and decided to seize the opportunity he was given, so he dedicated himself entirely and practised nonstop, improving his skills day by day. The love and interest for music grew on him gradually, and his instructors noticed he was constantly exceeding everyone’s expectations.
SM is innovative and known for contributing a lot to the Korean music industry. On December 3, 2013, one of their most significant projects at that time was announced: SM Rookies, created to showcase trainees and their talents. During this period, SR14B was announced as a male unit for this project, and Taeyong was the first trainee to release a track under their name called ‘Open the Door’. It was released on July 21, 2014, and is a rap track, composed and performed by Taeyong.
Taeyong’s first concert as part of SM Rookies happened on the premiere day of the reality show EXO 90:2014. He performed “Open the Door” on SMTOWN Live World Tour IV in Seoul with all his energy and charisma. After that, he made some appearances in the reality show before his official debut in NCT by participating in covers and games throughout the program. Later on, SR14B became SR15B, and the group toured Korea and Thailand from 2015 to 2016.
Following the success of SR14B and SR15B, Lee Soo-Man, the founder of SM Entertainment, announced Neo Culture Technology (NCT), a new boy group with a unique concept: an unlimited number of members with units composed of boys from all over the world. Taeyong, along with fellow trainees Mark, Ten, Jaehyun and Doyoung, revealed themselves as part of NCT U and on April 8, 2016, their first title track, “The 7th Sense,” was released. From the beginning, Taeyong received attention from the public thanks to his beauty and talent.
2016 was a huge year for Taeyong. After participating in NCT’s first variety show, NCT Life in Bangkok, Taeyong debuted in the next NCT sub-unit, NCT 127, with the title track “Fire Truck.”. Taeyong was made the official leader of this group, and although he likes to downplay his contributions humbly, he took his role very seriously right from the start. He is constantly contributing ideas, being supportive, making sure he can take good care of the members, and facilitating a smooth working relationship between the group and the staff. In NCT Life, Mark said that Taeyong is the pillar of NCT, and even today, the members recognise his importance to the group.
Since then, he has shown his artistry more and more. He worked nonstop and contributed significantly to the group’s growth, mainly because his versatility fits NCT’s concept perfectly. Taeyong has more than 30 credits as a songwriter for NCT and he had his first single released in 2019 called Long Flight, which he co-wrote and produced. In 2023, Taeyong finally released his first solo album, SHALALA, and in 2024 he released his 2nd solo ‘TAP’. Read more about Taeyong’s solo works here.
He loves being in the studio, and he has produced and composed various songs already, many of which are still unreleased. Besides that, Taeyong participated in OSTs like ‘Love Deluna’ and ‘Stay In My Life’, and he also collaborated with TVXQ!, Red Velvet, Yoo Young Jin, Hitchhiker, and Marteen, most of the time writing his own parts in the songs.
With time, Taeyong proved himself to be an extremely hardworking and talented artist, and in 2019, he was selected to debut as part of the unprecedented supergroup SuperM. Together with some of the best K-pop artists from different groups like EXO, SHINee, NCT, and WayV, he is part of the “Avengers of K-pop”. It’s safe to say that Taeyong has already established his place in this industry and has a solid fan base that loves him as an artist and person.
“I, who was born as a human, raised by a normal family, went to a normal school and led a normal life, seem to have become a special person thanks to you.”- Lee Taeyong
In 2021, he created an account on Instagram and SoundCloud to release his freestyle dances and productions made in collaboration with his producer friends. After only 2 hours of creating his Instagram account, he already had 1 million followers, the fastest in the world. After his first release on SoundCloud, Taeyong achieved 10 million overall streams in just 42 days, charting in different site categories several times.
Taeyong used to post his freestyles on the retired YouTube channel NCT Dance and share parts of his songs on Vlive or Bubble, a paid service for fans on Lysn. He always tries to connect with his fans in the best way he can, and through the years, he has created a beautiful relationship of mutual respect and support.
Taeyong knows how to connect with his fans and create an environment full of admiration and support from both sides. Known as TyongF, his fans send him love and appreciation while expressing his gratitude. He also always emphasizes how he wants everyone to grow with each other well.
Taeyong has created many incredible memories from this friendship. Among those is a beautiful nickname for himself, which comes from a scar next to his right eye that he used to dislike. After discovering his fans were calling him a rose due to the resemblance of shape between his scar and a rose, Taeyong embraced the nickname and started to appreciate his scar more.
Thanks to that, the rose is his official symbol in NCT and SuperM, representing him perfectly. Besides being recognised as an incredible artist with a captivating stage presence, Taeyong is also kindhearted, humble and extremely polite. His incredible personality reflects in his actions, his love for animals, and how people who met him personally talk about him.
Together with NCT, Taeyong volunteered at a school for multicultural students back in 2016, and since then, he is the only member who still donates to this day. The school principal revealed that Taeyong still sponsors four students from the school every month with the aptly named “Taeyong Scholarship.” In Food Diary (2018), we can see a little bit of him taking care of animals, cooking, and being in touch with nature, an excellent series to see a more relaxed and human side of Taeyong.
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