I have been in the South Korean music industry since I was 16 years old. It was not my lifelong dream to be a musician, but I found so much joy in making music. I did not acclimate well to high school and always had a vision that I would do something big and non-traditional with my life, so I dropped out.

One is a rapper, singer-songwriter, and actor. He is now an independent artist but previously trained under YG Entertainment, one of the biggest entertainment companies in South Korea. He has also appeared in dramas including A Korean Odyssey** _,** Room No. 9** , and_** Her Private Life** _._**

At the time, I really liked the music that was coming out of YG Entertainment, so I sent demos but never got a response. Eventually, when I had forgotten that I even sent the demos, a team of former YG producers who created their own label reached out and offered to sign me.

That was my first experience as a K-pop trainee. Hip-hop was not big in Korea at that time and the industry was full of idol groups like Super Junior. That was never a route I wanted to take; singing and dancing like them just did not come naturally to me. But at the time, it seemed like my only option, so I entered the rigorous K-pop system.

I debuted as part of the duo 1Punch and quickly realised that an idol group was not for me. We didn’t do as well as the label hoped, so they shelved us. I wanted to take control of my own destiny, so I made several requests to my company to join the rap TV competition Show Me the Money. That was my big break. I was lucky enough that I did relatively well on the show and once I appeared, I received a ton of offers from different labels and thought that if I were to sign with one again, I might as well go as big as I can and choose YG**.**

There, I went through even more rigorous training and again was forced to fit into a certain mould, that wasn’t truly me. This manifested in a lot of ways, from having me create songs that were not true to my style, to changing my fashion style to something that felt unnatural. It was like trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. What bothered me most was having to make decisions that contradicted my own identity to appease management. I felt like these choices were making me go against who I really was.

K-pop idol groups bring a lot of happiness to so many people but producing all artists to fit under this umbrella is not right. I want to see more diversity in our industry that has spent so much time erasing people's identities and putting them in a uniformed glossy package to fit what they think the masses want to consume.

I’ve seen a lot of talented musicians go through the same thing and I feel very sorry, sad, and disappointed for them. Like me, many of them thought that going through the idol group system was the only way to pursue their passion.