K-Pop Corner: Winner’s Mino opens up about agency
He says he was not given credit for songs he had written for them
Winner’s Mino opened up about the previous hardships he faced under the first agency he joined.
On an episode of Korean TV show, ‘We Will Channel You’, the rapper and songwriter revealed that he was initially supposed to debut under K-Pop boy group Block B. Due to contract disagreements, Mino said that he instead joined a start-up company and made his debut as a rapper in BoM, a male ballad group, in 2011.
Block B’s PO, who was also a guest on the show and is a longtime friend of the rapper, revealed that Mino wrote the group’s lyrics, but his former agency didn’t give credit for his work and registered someone else’s name for royalty payments.
“I mention my former company in my song ‘Fear.’ I didn’t even earn a dime there. I wrote the lyrics to five songs in the mini album, but my name didn’t even go up and they talked as if not putting my name is normal,” Mino explained, according to US-based Korean entertainment website Allkpop.
The K-Pop idol was an underground rapper before shooting to K-Pop stardom as a member of YG Entertainment’s boy group Winner in 2014. He is also well known for winning second place on popular rap competition TV show, ‘Show Me the Money’, in 2015.
Aside from his group activities, he embarked on a solo project by releasing his first solo self-produced album, ‘XX’, fronted by lead track ‘Fiance’. They were both hits in the UAE and, of course, in his home country. Alongside his members, he is credited for writing and composing the majority of Winner’s songs.