THE K-POP KING

Chairman Bang is bringing his formula for creating idols to the U.S.

- ALEX BARASCH

Scooter Braun was in a tailspin. It was February, 2021, and the music manager, who had made his name launching the careers of Justin Bieber and Ariana Grande, was nearing forty and facing a brutal divorce. An equally nasty battle with Taylor Swift, over his ownership of her song catalogue, had sullied his public image. Rumors circulated that the future of Braun’s company, Ithaca Holdings, was in doubt. Amid this tumult, he was surprised to receive an invitation to speak with someone who had long fascinated him: the South Korean producer Bang Si-hyuk—known to admirers as Hitman Bang.

Braun had first heard of Bang several years earlier, when a member of his social-media team told him about a boy band from South Korea whose onlineengagement numbers had surpassed even Bieber’s. Braun was skeptical and asked her to check the figures again in a week. They’d gone up. The group, BTS, became the biggest act in the world—and the one with the most zealous fan community, which routinely mobilizes online to insure that their boys top the charts. Bang had handpicked the group’s members and co-written many of its early hits.

Braun and Bang met on Zoom, and bonded over the fact that both had plucked young artists from obscurity and guided their meteoric ascents. “It was like finding a kindred spirit across the sea,” Braun told me. “I’ve never been able to talk to anyone about this stuff.” Soon, they were chatting three times a week. A month later, Braun sold his company to Bang’s hybe Corporation, in a deal worth upward of a billion dollars.