South Korean entertainment company YG Entertainment has given its home country, neighboring Asia, and even the world with some pretty awesome talents, particularly groups like Blackpink, Big Bang and iKON. Formed in 2015, iKON has had its own prominent share of the K-Pop following, with three studio albums (one in Japanese), two mini-album extended plays (EP), and lots of singles. Initially starting as a seven-man boy band, iKON saw member Kim Han-Bin aka B.I. leave last year, though his presence will still be felt as iKON gets ready to release its next EP this month.
According to The Manila Bulletin, the third extended play from iKON, titled “i DECIDE,” is scheduled to be released this coming Thursday, February 6. This mini-album is composed of five songs, headlined by the promo single “Dive.” It will also be the first EP put out by iKON since the departure of rapper B.I. from their roster in July 2019. Or rather, it would have been the last since YG Entertainment revealed that “i DECIDE” was already finished the year before, while B.I. was still a member. He also shares songwriting and composer for the featured songs alongside the other creative minds of YG Entertainment.
Originally, YG had thought to remove all songs in the originally full-sized album that B.I. had a hand in writing and composing for. That would however mandate the creation of new songs for the remaining members to record. And as iKON already had a recent long hiatus that was a bad option any way YG might slice it. Instead, some of the songs were redone, by removing the rap lyrics done by B.I. and having members Jinhwan, Yunhyeong, Bobby, Donghyuk, Ju-ne and Chanwoo take over rapping the lines as needed.
The last full iKON album released by YG Entertainment was a reissue called “The New Kids” on January of 2019. Said album would be re-recorded in Japanese for that market the following month. Kim “B.I.” Han-Bin left the group by June after a gossip column unearthed social media messages by him in conversation with a then-anonymous female narcotics dealer, discussing the possible purchase of drugs. He admitted the messages were genuine, and his actions were brought on by personal issues. B.I. was originally fronted as the leader of iKON, and was also part of their posse of producers in YG.
Image courtesy of V Live
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