G-Dragon (Kwon Ji Yong | ???) born August 18, 1988, in South Korea, is the leader of the Korean boyband, BIG BANG (??).
He was originally suppose to debut as a child hip-hop artist in hope of gaining fame, popularity, and success like Lil' Bow Wow and Lil' Romeo did in the states. However he was unable to release an album and was limited to only appearing in YG artists? albums. On January 2001, Jiyong debuted on the album, ?Daehanmingook Hip-Hop Flex? as a rapper. He was later recruited with Tae Yang to act in Jinusean?s MV as their minis, which happened on February of the same year.
Afterward he began to train for his planned debut as the hip-hop group, GDYB, with Tae Yang. During his training, he was already featured on songs and appearing in MVs by Perry, SE7EN, JinuSean, Masta Wu, Wheesung, YG Family, Gummy, SWI.T, and Lexy. GDYB was allowed to release 2 songs for YG Family?s second album and appear alongside Se7en for the World Cup, but they, unfortunately, was never able to release an album nor debut. In 2004, both Tae Yang and Jiyong were listed as YG?s fresh, new faces and was scheduled that year. However, those plans were quickly cancelled by Hyun Suk, who had planned on forming a 4-6 member group. It wasn't until 2 years later, in 2006, that Big Bang was finally able to announce their official debut.
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From Wikipedia:Kwon Ji-Yong (born August 18, 1988), better known by his stage name G-Dragon, is a South Korean singer and song-writer. A trainee under the record label YG Entertainment for six years, G-Dragon officially debuted as the leader and one of the two rappers for the Korean hip-hop group Big Bang. Since their debut, G-Dragon has involved himself with the production of their albums: he composed and wrote several tracks by himself, including "Lies," "Last Farewell," and "Haru Haru."
During the hiatus of Big Bang, G-Dragon released his debut solo album, Heartbreaker (2009), which went on to become the most successful album of the year, garnering sales of over 120,000 copies. The album sparked major controversies for the artist, including accusations of plagiarism; however, all accusations have been dropped.