Hot 21 Radio

j-hope

As a longstanding member of BTS, j-hope is a name synonymous with world-dominating K-pop superstardom, having joined the group in 2013 and regularly achieving milestones; they were most recently crowned the world’s top-selling act of 2021. Born Jung Ho-seok (Korean: 정호석) on February 18, 1994 in Buk District, Gwangju, the South Korean rapper, singer-songwriter, dancer, and record producer known professionally as j-hope released his first solo mixtape, Hope World, in 2018 through the label Big Hit Entertainment, with the album rising to number 38 on the Billboard 200 chart; j-hope became the highest-charting Korean solo artist at the time of the release. The following year, he served up a smoking hot trilingual collaboration with US singer Becky G, "Chicken Noodle Soup," which samples DJ Webstar and rapper Young B's song of the same name and was accompanied by a popular Internet dance challenge on TikTok. He dropped his debut studio album, Jack in the Box, in 2022, which looks to universal themes like humanity and success and takes its sonic cues from '90s hip-hop as well as folding in elements of grunge, R&B, and other diverse styles. The album shot to number two on Japan's Oricon Digital Albums Chart and went to number 17 on the US Billboard 200.