Kwon Jiyong doesn’t know the meaning of the word “break”.

He doesn’t know what “resting” is, and he’s not quite sure when his need to constantly work began; Maybe when he was chosen as Big Bang’s leader at 18 years old, or maybe when him and Youngbae first became trainees together at the age of 13, or maybe even when he was a six year old on “PoPoPo”.

Whenever it was, it hasn’t ceased since. The word “break” isn’t in Jiyong’s vocabulary because all he knows is the word “work”.

Because that’s all that Jiyong ever really does.

Work.

It doesn’t matter what he’s doing- eating breakfast, walking Gaho, getting ready to finally climb into bed after spending over 10 hours at the studio....as soon as a hook, a melody, or even just a quote pop into his head, he drops everything for it. Nothing gets in between him and his craft. Lyrics, song composition, producing; all of it is top priority. He isn’t afraid to spend six hours on a song that may never see the light of day -or maybe it will, just not until it’s gone through months worth of revisions before it’s shown to anyone- because this is what he does. It’s what he feels he was born to do.


Without music Jiyong’s life has next to no meaning at all.

He needs it.

It’s a chemical element, equivalent to oxygen for him.


Music is where his thoughts go at the end of the day. When he’s happy- he writes; When he’s angry- he writes; When he’s depressed- he writes.

People ask him about what he does on vacation- because it’s not that he never takes vacations, they’re just few and far between- and he might talk about how he spent time walking along the beach or wakeboarding at a lake, but he rarely tells them about what he does the rest of the time.

That walk on the beach? Sure it was calming, but maybe it made him realize how lonely he is and how he wishes he had someone to share that moment with. And wakeboarding may have been fun and possibly the most exciting (non-work-related) thing he’s done in the past year, but it could’ve easily triggered memories of when Dongwook used to bring him and Youngbae along on similar trips to help conceal his relationship with Hanbyul.

Inspiration practically throws itself at him at every corner. It’s inescapable, and Jiyong’s been writing long enough to know this, and he doesn’t bother trying to run from it.

Instead he embraces it with open arms, welcoming it as if it were a good friend whom he’d lost contact with years and years ago.

So he’ll write lyrics and mess around with beats on his laptop when he gets back to his hotel room, and he’ll be up until god-knows-when, racking his brain as he tries to designate lines to each of the members (even if the lyrics are nowhere near complete).

He’ll wake up in the morning grouchy and irritated until he gets coffee, or an energy drink, or anything that’ll jumpstart his brain and give his body enough juice to make it through to the end of the day- where he’s bound to repeat the cycle of working late into the night all over again.


Jiyong gets asked what he would do if he weren’t making music and he always wants to answer the question truthfully; but telling the public that he can’t see himself doing anything else just doesn’t feel right to him. From his perspective it makes him sound like he believes he’s too good to not make music, like the world needs him around because he’s so talented. No matter how truthful it may be.

Because without music Jiyong truly has no idea what he would do.

If he were never allowed to compose another song, or to write another lyric, or help produce an album... what would he do?

Jiyong’s response in his head to this question is always “nothing”.

Because with the way his mind works now, it wouldn’t be possible.

Because no matter how much sleep he loses trying to finish lyrics or how stressed he is trying to get the song to sound just right, or how ill he becomes after pushing his body’s limits when it comes to performing on stage...


All of it is worth it.


Sure, he may not be 100% happy with how everything turns out in a year from now, but that’s what keeps him going. It’s what drives him to work even harder, to break out of the box even more.

And there will always be controversies and scandals and a menagerie of things that create a burden for him in one way or another, but as long as people are talking about him he knows he’s doing something right.

What matters most to him is that he speaks his mind and pours his heart out and lays his entire inner being out for all the world to see.

They can talk all they want about how he’s a genius or overrated or too explicit or whatever.

As long as he stays true to himself, as long as he keeps doing music for his reasons and no one else’s... That’s what matters.


His public image is secondary to all of this - though not unimportant by any means.

All the aforementioned controversies and scandals a constant reminder that, regardless of how far away he thinks he is from the public eye, he is always being watched in some way by someone.


It’s a pain to put up with sometimes, never having any real privacy, but Jiyong knew full-well what being in the music business meant when he signed up for training.


Still, no amount of paparazzi could stress him out in the way being an artist -and a performing one at that- does.


Worrying about his vocal cords forming polyps, practicing choreography until he’s about to pass out from overexertion, hoping that no technical difficulties arise -though he knows how to handle them and understands that that’s one of many things he truly has no control over.

Every single second of work is stressful.

But the cheers from the fans, the rush of adrenaline that courses through his veins as he steps onto that stage, the rush of joy and relief he gets when everything he’s worked so hard on is put on display for other people to see- these all combine together to give him the biggest sense of reward and any and all stress that was involved in making it to this point is irrelevant.

That feeling is what allows him to go out to the afterparties and let loose. He’s accomplished what he’s set out to do and he was successful and he should pat himself on the back for a job well-done.

And he drags himself to bed at 2AM in a drunken, happy stupor and knocks out cold until he hears his alarm signaling him to get up and get ready for another busy day.


So if you were to take a peek into the mind of Kwon Jiyong when you ask him “when do you take a break?” and “what would you be doing if you weren’t making music?”, you would see his most honest answers.

“Never” and “Nothing.”