walking upstream…
BIGBANG
sourcesWikipedia — Big Bang (South Korean band) · Rolling Stone — Taeyang on His Solo 'Quintessence,' Playing Coachella, and More (bio, 20th-anniversary framing) · MoneyToday StarNews via Nate News — Seo Taiji grants BIGBANG permission to sample, a first (Seo Taiji influence) · Bugs — track listing, 'Crazy Dog,' Bigbang Mini 2 - Hot Issue (Seo Taiji sample corroboration)
On August 19, 2006, five trainees took the stage at Seoul's Olympic Gymnastics Arena as BIGBANG — G-Dragon, T.O.P, Taeyang, Daesung, and Seungri — signed to YG Entertainment, whose founder Yang Hyun-suk had once been a member of Seo Taiji and Boys, the group that invented Korea's idol-hip-hop hybrid a decade earlier. G-Dragon wrote and produced most of their material from the start, threading R&B, house, and electro through five distinct personas. By 2012, Alive became the first K-pop album by a Korean group to reach the Billboard 200, and "Fantastic Baby" later landed on Rolling Stone's list of the greatest boy-band songs ever. Opening Coachella twenty years on, in 2026, Taeyang said the set existed to "show our history" — a group whose own history runs straight back to the genre it was built to inherit.
the sound in question
2012
Fantastic BabyBIGBANG
walk the tributaries ↓
Seo Taiji and Boys1990s · K-pop / New jack swing / Rap rock
By 2007 no one had ever sampled Seo Taiji: the reclusive singer-producer had quit Korea's copyright association in 2001 rather than let anyone remake his songs without his direct say-so, and every request since had gone nowhere. Then Yang Hyun-suk — BIGBANG's label boss at YG Entertainment, and a former member of Seo Taiji and Boys himself — carefully asked for a piece of "환상속의 그대" ("You, in the Fantasy") for the label's new five-member group. Seo said yes, and "Crazy Dog" — credited on release as "Sampling By 환상 속의 그대 Of Taiji Boys" — became the first sample he ever allowed.
listen: upstream & here
1992
You, in the FantasySeo Taiji and Boys
2007
Crazy DogBIGBANG
listen forListen for the wiry, arpeggiated synthesizer figure that opens Seo Taiji and Boys' "You, in the Fantasy" — a bright, insistent pattern that has nothing to do with the song's vocal melody. Warped into a stuttering, bass-heavy loop, that same figure resurfaces under G-Dragon and T.O.P's verses on BIGBANG's "Crazy Dog": the one texture Korea's most guarded catalog owner ever agreed to let go of, permission and all.
Pharrell Williams2000s–10s · Hip Hop / R&B / Funk / Pop
Asked in 2014 to name his dream collaborator, G-Dragon didn't hesitate: "Pharrell [Williams]! Ever since I got into writing hip-hop music, he's been my only living idol," he told The Hollywood Reporter — this from a producer who had already worked with Diplo and Baauer and quietly cut an unreleased track with Justin Bieber. As BIGBANG's chief songwriter from its earliest EPs, G-Dragon built the group's catalog on that same restless, genre-hopping instinct: glossy, hook-driven hip-hop-pop that refuses to sit still inside one sound.
listen: upstream & heresource: The Hollywood Reporter — K-Pop Star G-Dragon on His Growing Global Influence (Pharrell Williams influence) ↗
2003
Frontin'Pharrell Williams
2012
CrayonBIGBANG
listen forPlay Pharrell's "Frontin'" — falsetto draped over a spare, horn-flecked hip-hop groove, Jay-Z sliding in for a verse — against G-Dragon's "Crayon": the same boastful, ad-libbed swagger riding glossy, colorful synth-and-horn production, the same restless refusal to settle into one register. It is the closest audible match to the "hip-hop hero" claim G-Dragon makes about Pharrell, even without a shared song or writing credit linking the two directly.
Michael Jackson1980s · Pop / R&B / Funk
In 2014, asked which R&B acts were inspiring him, Taeyang named no one currently on the charts. "These artists definitely inspire me," he told Billboard, "but after listening to Michael Jackson's latest album 'Xscape,' it reminded me once again that he is my greatest inspiration" — Xscape being a posthumous compilation released five years after Jackson's death. For BIGBANG's lead vocalist, the pull is toward Jackson's smooth, falsetto-carried R&B rather than the showmanship alone.
listen: upstream & heresource: Billboard — Taeyang Talks 'Rise' Reception, Michael Jackson's Influence & English Album Possibility (Michael Jackson influence) ↗
1979
Rock with YouMichael Jackson
2010
Wedding DressBIGBANG
listen forSet Jackson's "Rock with You" beside Taeyang's "Wedding Dress": both ride a light, insistent groove under a high, feathery falsetto that floats just above the beat instead of pushing against it. It is the specific Jackson mode — smooth rather than showy — that Taeyang singled out by name, made audible here in a Korean R&B ballad from his 2010 solo album, three decades after Jackson cut the original.