Big Bang member G-Dragon has posted a new cryptic teaser, seemingly hinting towards an upcoming solo comeback.
A teaser was posted on G-Dragon’s official fan social media channels on October 21, containing a black image and the caption “beyond-black”. The post also included hashtags such as #hiddengem and #GDRAGON2024, supposedly teasing upcoming solo music from the veteran K-pop idol.
Several fans discovered that the words “Loading… Progress: 10%” are included in the image upon increasing its brightness. However, no official comeback announcement has been made by G-Dragon and his team as of writing. More details are expected in the coming months.
The teaser comes months after his label confirmed that G-Dragon would be making his long-awaited comeback “in the second half of this year”. At the time, the agency also said that the K-pop star would also be “carrying out global activities and activities in Japan” as part of his comeback. No update about solo music has been provided since.
G-Dragon’s last solo release was his self-titled EP ‘Kwon Ji-yong’ in 2017. The K-pop idol first debuted as a member of K-pop boyband Big Bang in 2006, before launching a solo career in 2009 with his debut studio album ‘Heartbreaker’.
Next month, G-Dragon is slated to perform at this year’s MAMA Awards, specifically at the November 23 ceremony in Osaka. It will notably be the K-pop icon’s first appearance at the awards ceremony in nine years, after Big Bang’s 2015 performance at the event.
The 2024 MAMA Awards are set to be held across three days from November 21 to 23. The first day will be held at Los Angeles’ Hollywood Dolby Theatre for the first time, while the remaining two days are to take place at the Kyocera Dome.
Reneé Rapp is seen as a “huge inspiration” by SZA.
The 25-year-old artist performed SZA’s Good Days in the BBC Radio 1 Live Lounge, accompanied by two acoustic guitarists and a harp player. SZA, 35, was deeply moved by the rendition.
She posted a short video of the moment on Instagram Stories and wrote: “Renee is a HUGE inspiration, energy, voice spirit.”
During her chat with the BBC, Renee shared her thoughts about the track. She said: “I mean, I love SZA. I mean, she was one of my favorite artists in high school. And she's remained one of my favorite artists to this day. I think she's amazing. She's also, I mean, she's an incredible songwriter, but I think because she has so much swag. People don't realize how good of a singer she is. She's a fantastic vocalist and is really, really, really articulate. And I don't cover a lot of songs anymore. So I wanted to cover something that was, like, slightly challenging and also really vocally impressive, and frankly, hard for me to do.”
Renee is currently in the middle of promoting her second album, Bite Me, and opened up about how much more enjoyable it was to create compared to her first project.
She explained: “I mean, I feel like everything was incredibly different. I stopped listening to people that don't make music, because if you don't make music, then why the hell am I listening to you. And I also think the biggest difference, I think I just got a lot better. I think I have just become a better songwriter. I think I understand how to make pop music now in a way that I didn't really before. And I was very sure about what this album was and thematically, what it needed.
“So I felt like I was quite like, headstrong in like, what was gonna work and what wasn't. Because, nobody knows something better than yourself. I think a lot of things were different. I also just, like, had a lot of fun making it, like, I made it with like, three people, mostly, like, it was always like, four of us in the studio all the time, and we got so close, and some of us were already so close. So it was also just like a mess. It was such a mess, like we were just tweaking every day. It was so fun. And I don't think I enjoyed making the first one as much.”
