Jay Park has opened up about his place as an “older” artist in the K-pop industry.
In a new episode of URBAN ZAPAKA singer Cho Hyun-ah’s YouTube show Thursday Night, Korean-American singer Jay Park discussed his new K-pop label MORE VISON and his recent shift to producing and managing artists.
“I wouldn’t say that I’m a superstar,” he said when Cho referred to him as one, per SBS Star. “I don’t consider myself a star anymore. I’m more like a middle-aged man now. I definitely have more middle-aged man vibes than superstar vibes.”
The singer went on to discuss his hip-hop labels AOMG and H1GHR MUSIC, as well as the upcoming K-pop group he is forming under MORE VISION, which he established last year. Park shared that he has started to turn his focus to managing and producing for other artists instead of his own music career.
“If you want to be part of the music scene for long, still performing when you’re older, you constantly got to think, analyse and study in order to either improve yourself greatly […] every time you make a comeback. That’s what you’re expected [to do], and that’s tiring,” the singer admitted.
“With the sexy genre that I’m doing, the older I get, the more likely that I’ll be put in a difficult situation,” he explained. “It’s not like I can’t stay sexy, but I don’t want to stay sexy. There are plenty of guys out there who are sexier than I am, and what I don’t want to do is try too hard to win them.”
He later spoke about MORE VISION’s auditions for its upcoming K-pop group: “I did realise that when I’m at auditions, I tend to favour certain types of people. I can usually tell their personality and taste in music by the song they choose to sing at their auditions.”
Elsewhere in the episode, he also discussed why he decided to move on from his previous labels, which he says allowed him to reach the “top” of the hip-hop scene in Korea. “I was the head of those agencies for years, and it just seemed like there was nothing more I could bring to the table there,” Park said.
