As you might suspect, Asia’s biggest megastar arrived with a bang in Brooklyn. The 28-year-old G-Dragon, formerly of K-pop boy band Big Bang, played Barclays Center amid his four-continent world tour, Act III, M.O.T.T.E., or Moment of Truth the End, a three-part performance chronicling the oeuvre of his solo career (which began in 2009) and the perpetual tension between his larger-than-life persona (G-Dragon) and his more introverted, actual self (Kwon Ji Yong).

For the South Korean performer, who many have compared to Michael Jackson in terms of both talent and career arc, commanding the stage comes naturally. G-Dragon has been training for this moment for essentially his entire young life: working tirelessly among the lower rungs of the then-nascent Korean pop and entertainment industry in the 1990s and signing onto mainstream label YG Entertainment (LVMH is a current investor) in the early aughts. With Big Bang, G-Dragon and his bandmates—T.O.P., Taeyang, Seungri, and Daesung—went on to sell more than 140 million records, propelling themselves into superstar status both at home and throughout the rest of Asia and breaking records in Japan, Taiwan, and mainland China. The rest of the world soon took note. “I wasn’t trying to be famous when I started making music. I mean, that wasn’t the first thing I wanted,” G-Dragon told I-D in June. “But, of course, I see more and more people getting interested in Korean culture, and I’m so proud about it. I’m honored in a way. I love my country, so I’m more than happy to see it shine. It’s going really fast; there’s a good and a bad side to it, but I try to take the best of it. I still want to try new things so I can learn about them and then teach those things to younger people.”

The rising tide of popularity of Korean pop music—consider the current prominence of Billboard-award winning bands like BTS—is also characteristic of a broader, cultural sweep known as hallyu, or the “Korean Wave,” a transnational flow of state-sponsored soft power in which music, television, fashion, beauty, aesthetics, and cuisine are all exported for ready consumption, giving birth to an enduring era of irrefutable Korean cultural currency. The effect of hallyu has not gone unnoticed: China’s government recently imposed a ban on K-pop stars, television dramas, and beauty products from entering mainland China as a retaliatory effort against the bilateral, U.S.–South Korean installation of the THAAD missile defense system.

With the rise of the Korean Wave also came G-Dragon’s own staggering celebrity. A consummate breakout artist, he is known for his outré, gender-fluid fashions and slick, signature swag. His wide range of performance styles—rapping a lyrical verse one minute, singing falsetto sotto voce the next—perfectly captures the allure of K-pop’s unique synthesis: It’s part pop, hip-hop, and EDM, with the occasional interspersing of English words. Where K-pop really nails it, though, is with music videos, in which outsize outfits and non-narrative worlds of fantasy, fun, and intrigue converge—these are the blueprints that viral successes (think: Psy’s “Gangnam Style”) are made of.