Jackson Wang sur le tournage de "LMLY"
As JACKSON WANG celebrates his 27th birthday, let’s sit down and go back on his story.
JACKSON WANG is a multi-hyphenate artist who promotes both in China and globally. To this day, his discography counts a mini-album, numerous singles and collaborations with artists all around the world. In the journey of his career, he also broke through the lines of the musical scene as he ventured into various domains.
JACKSON has not always been the artist he is known for today. Born in Hong Kong in a family of athletes, he started his career as a fencer himself and was part of the national fencing team. In 2011, he was preparing for the 2012 London Olympics as he followed the footsteps of his father, who was once a fending gold medalist of the Asian Games. Her mother, Sophia Chow, was also a gymnastics champion and his brother now plays as a professional rugbyman in Australia. With a promising career ahead, he was offered a scholarship at the University of Stanford in the US.
https://twitter.com/JogosOlimpicos/status/1298628770337718272?s=20
Yet, it was music that he was passionate about. So, in 2011, following a preliminary audition at JYP Entertainment, JACKSON left Hong Kong to go to South Korea and train in the hopes of becoming a singer. Jackson’s musical career then started on January 16, 2014 when JYP Entertainment debuted a new male group: GOT7. Immediately, JACKSON gained popularity as the rapper of the group with acrobatic and dancing skills. Although their contract with the company has now ended, he keeps his position as a member of GOT7. Along with the group, he has enjoyed global recognition as they recorded a total of 17 Korean albums and won the Korean main awards of Best performers at the Asia Artist Awards two years in row following their Eyes on you world tour in 2018 and their Keep Spinning world tour in 2019.
https://twitter.com/GOT7Official/status/1332715939389788161?s=20
JACKSON promotes as a solo artist. On June 26, 2017, JACKSON announced on his Instagram account the launch of his own company, TEAM WANG. Ever since, his artistic career took off with a community that keeps growing day after day. In 2019, his birthday fanmeeting “Journey 328” sold out in less than two minutes and Forbes named him as one of the 100 most influential celebrities in Asia in 2020.
JACKSON‘s latest musical piece, released on March 26, is a solo single entitled “LMLY” that came with an MV that he scripted entirely and co-directed in collaboration in Mamesjao. While the song reminds us of the pop sound from the 1980s, it is very different from his first songs that were more rap, hip-hop and trap oriented, in the likes of his title “Papillon” and his collab song “Bruce Lee” with Al Rocco. He now explores different genres, like he did with “LMLY” and his previous releases “Pretty please” and “100 ways”, whose MV surpassed 55 million views. In October 2019, JACKSON released his first mini-album “MIRRORS” with 8 tracks, 7 in English, 1 in Chinese. This album includes many collaborations. One of them was “Titanic” , choreographed by KINJAZ and Indonesian rapper Rich Brian.
As he keeps going forward on his musical path, he now commits more and more to his creative projects as he writes his own lyrics, participates in the creation of his MVs and production of his songs. Recently, he scripted the MV and wrote the lyrics to “Magnetic”, the second track of RAIN’s new EP for which he collaborated.
Yet, it has not always been an easy path. At the beginning of his career, his charming personality and his natural charm got him to appear in numerous TV shows. During a live with his fans, BM from KARD said “I think he’s one of the most nicest, down to earth, open guy I’ve ever met in this industry. That guy treats everyone the same. I’ve never heard anyone else speak bad about him, I’ve never heard or seen him be mean to anybody. He’s respectful and nice to everybody.” Members of the school board from his previous international high school in Hong Kong also describes him as an enthusiastic person who is “very friendly” and “very caring”, who “communicates well” and whose personality is very “charismatic”. And so, his social skills helped him gain popularity in South Korea, but at the time, he had difficulty making his artistic side known from the public. The launch of his own label was the springboard for his musical career: starting with only one partner, he worked on the creation and artistry of his projects, on the legal, financial and all the other administrative aspects of his label, which got him to be recognized as fully-fledged artist. In 2019, his first album “MIRRORS” was awarded as the Best Chinese Album of the Year and the Pop Album of the Year at the NetEase Cloud Music Awards. His success crossed the borders of China as he was invited to guest at James Corden’s Late Late Show and “MIRRORS” debuted on Billboard 200 at 32.
So, JACKSON managed to make his way in the entertainment industry. He keeps charming the audience in Chinese TV shows such as Go Fridge where he now is a permanent MC. He is also regularly invited to join shows like Street dance of China as his dancing skills makes him a suitable coach to competing teams. Many professionnals from the industry testified for his talent. In a Youtube podcast,THE KINJAZ said “Jackson is like a friend. Jackson is somebody that we respect, he works so hard but he also respects us and keeps that relationship with us”. Recently, he also collaborated with JESSI at the 2020 KBS Song Festival for her “Nunu nana” performance, which earned 10M views in less than a week and that has now almost 48M views. Following the performance, she commented under his Instagram post « Jackson A singer/rapper/dancer/comedian/ceo and the best part HUMBLE ».
JACKSON’s ambitions are high and go beyond music. Since the beginning, he’s been multiplying parrtnerships with global brands in the fashion and beauty industry such as FENDI, RAY-BAN and Cartier. In 2019, JACKSON launched a capsule collection with FENDI, the first ever velvet line for the brand. In the same year, his face appeared on Ray-Ban’s « PROUD TO BELONG » campaign all around the world and released globally three pairs of Ray-Ban glasses with his signature. In 2020, he became a global ambassador for Cartier for their « Pasha de Cartier » campaign and continued to pose for magazines all round the world (Harper’s Bazaar Chine, ELLE Singapour, TMRW magazine, L’Officiel USA et México, Flaunt Magazine, …).
In July 18, 2020, after three years of work behind the scenes, he launched his own brand TEAM WANG design with his partners Henry and Brandon with a monochromatic streetwear line. Ever since, he released many limited edition projects that he likes to call « SPARKLE »: a white collection auctioned on Stock X, a TEAM WANG x MONET collection in collaboration with the MONET exhibition at the One Art Museum in Shanghai and lastly, a wine cabinet inspired by air carts on planes that he called “THE CART” and that comes with a set of glassware. Recently, he also launched his second line with a focus on velvet. The collection is available on the brand’s website.
His ambitions are endless. Proud of his culture, he wants to promote and introduce it to the world. “As much as I love learning about other cultures, I love sharing mine”. In his latest releases, we can notice traditional and artistic inspiration from the Chinese culture. The MVs for “LMLY” and “Pretty Please” for example were inspired by Hong Kong and Chinese movies from the 1990s that JACKSON grew up watching. In the same line, he hopes to have more Asian artists represented on the international scene and wants to bring his contribution, as he confided during an interview with Farfetch.
JACKSON’s career grows day by day as his imagination goes beyond boundaries, and his ventures in different domains keeps surprising his fans. Active on all social platforms, you can follow him on Instagram, Twitter and Weibo to keep up with his activities.
Journalist: Catherine
Translator: Catherine
Sources : Forbes, Interview avec Zach Sang, Mini-reportage AIS, Interview avec Farfetch, SNS GOT7, Jackson Wang, Team Wang, Team Wang design
