Psy's Success Not Totally Unexpected Says YG Boss

Psy's Guy: Yang Hyeon-seok has been knocking for years on the door Psy crashed through.

Psy’s swift rise to the top of the global pop scene with the success of “Gangnam Style” wasn’t entirely a freak phenomenon, according to the man who heads up the rapper’s Korean management firm YG Entertainment.

“Psy’s success?” Yang Hyeon-seok, 43, said to Chosun Ilbo. “The door we’ve been knocking on has finally opened.”

YG Entertainment has been targeting the global pop market since the firm opened its doors in 1997 says Yang, its chairman and CEO.

“If you fuse creativity with organizational power, you end up becoming a formidable force,” Yang said.

Putting aside the sponsorship deals he has put together for Psy, Yang has been pairing the talents in his stable with some of the world’s biggest organizations. He recently launched a fashion brand called Natural Nine by partnering with Samsung Group’s fashion subsidiary Cheil Industries. Yang will have Big Bang and 2NE1, two of YG’s top Kpop groups, participate in the design process and wear the resulting fashions on stage to promote them.

Yang has also partnered his stable of talents with Samsung Electronics, Hyundai Card and other leading Korean corporations. As of November YG and Psy have collectively earned about $13.5 million in advertising, music royalties and sponsorships.

YG is estimated to have grossed about $100 million in 2012 from song rights, performances and merchandise sales, ranking it with SM and JYP Entertainment among Korea’s top three entertainment conglomerates. The group’s success in promoting Kpop around the world is also credited with creating an economic halo effect that has boosted the value of Korean culture by nearly a billion dollars.

After a banner year in 2012, thanks in large part to Psy’s breakout success, Yang has shifted his expectations into a higher gear.

“To be honest, my goal just three years ago was to rise to the top of the Korean music industry,” he said. “But now that goal has changed to the global music industry. I have become more confident. I’ve seen the doors open to a market that had seemed impenetrable. Now we have to aim for the top.”

Crucial to Yang’s global ambition are the US and Japan markets which account for nearly half of the global pop music market. Yang has enjoyed considerable success in Japan and the rest of Asia with concerts by Big Bang, 2NE1 and Lee Hi. But it wasn’t until Psy’s “Gangnam Style” went viral that YG has been able to achieve any scale in the US market.

Yang entered the music business in 1992 as one of two backup dancers in the Kpop boy band Seo Taiji & Boys. The group is credited with ushering in today’s heavily electronic Kpop sound by experimenting with MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) to produce an invigorating hi-tech aesthetic. The staggering popularity of Psy’s “Gangnam Style” owes in part to the heavy use of MIDI techniques.