Jay Park Enjoys Trans-Pacific Music Stardom
By James Moreau | 28 Aug, 2025

A Korean American from Washington earned a lasting place in the hip-hop and K-pop scenes in both the US and South Korea.

Jay Park is an American rapper, singer-songwriter, dancer, and entrepreneur whose Usher-esque performances have captivated global audiences from his current base in S. Korea.

At 38 he continues touring across the Pacific while releasing his single “Remedy.”

Park’s US music career went into high gear in 2017 when he was signed by Jay-Z’s Roc Nation as the first Asian American artist on the record label.  He released 2 EPs with the label in collaboration with his own label AOMG, including the hit “Soju” featuring rapper 2 Chains.

That same year Park founded the label H1ghr Music focused on Seattle and South Korean hip hop talent.

Park’s career as an entertainer began in 2010 with a cover of B.o.B’s “Nothin’ on You” that went viral on YouTube.  It led to an official collaboration and enabled his debut EP Count On Me which sold more than 5 million copies while driving the original song’s popularity in South Korea.

Park released a 2011 mini-album Take a Deeper Look featured “Abandoned” which peaked at number 2 on the US World Charts with songs in Korean and English.

The EP’s success led to 2012’s New Breed, the first of his six studio albums, which topped the charts in South Korea.  The lead single “Girlfriend” was produced by fellow AOMG member Cha Cha Malone.  

Park’s debut album won him the “Netizen’s Choice Male Artist of the Year” at the Korean Music Awards.

The resulting fame allowed him to found his own label, AOMG which has released four albums: Evolution in 2014, Worldwide in 2015, Everything You Wanted in 2016, and The Road Less Traveled in 2019.  The first three charted top five in South Korea.

In 2022 Park founded More Vision to focus on K-Pop.

Park has over 3 million followers each on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, and Spotify.

His most viewed YouTube videos are the sexually charged “Mommae” with 181 million views and the flashy choreography of “All I Wanna Do” with 79 million views.  Both are also his most streamed songs.

As a high schooler in greater Seattle Park joined the b-boy crew Art of Movement in 2003 as he began exploring music.  A local talent audition hosted by South Korean conglomerate JYP Entertainment earned him a spot on the K-pop boy band 2PM.  In the course of a docuseries Park ultimately became group leader under the name Jaebeom.

2PM debuted its lead single “10 Out of 10” in 2008, but Park left the group after only a year after he made disparaging comments about Koreans.  He was “young and dumb,” he later reflected. Park has served as a judge or producer on various music and talent competition shows, including “Show Me the Money” and “Asia’s Got Talent.”  He was also a cast member on “Saturday Night Live Korea.”