PSY

PSY is the South Korean entertainer who, with a single satirical pop song, became the first global star of the YouTube era. Born Park Jae-sang on December 31, 1977, in the affluent Gangnam district of Seoul, he had spent more than a decade as a popular but controversial figure in Korean music before “Gangnam Style” turned him into a worldwide phenomenon in 2012. Its music video became the first in YouTube history to pass one billion views, and it held the title of most-watched video on the platform for nearly five years. For a few months, a Korean artist rapping in his own language was one of the most famous performers on earth.

An unlikely pop star

Park grew up in a wealthy family and was expected to follow his father into business. He went to the United States to study, enrolling at Boston University and then transferring to the Berklee College of Music, but he left without graduating and returned to South Korea in 2000 to pursue music. He took the stage name PSY, short for “psycho,” to reflect a wild, comic approach to performance. His 2001 debut album earned him a reputation as a provocative outsider, nicknamed the “Bizarre Singer” for his blunt lyrics and unconventional look, and several of his early records drew controversy and official complaints. He also completed two separate terms of mandatory military service, an unusual interruption that delayed his career.

“Gangnam Style”

By 2012 PSY was an established Korean act signed to YG Entertainment, but few outside Asia knew him. That July he released his sixth album and its lead single, “Gangnam Style,” a song that mocked the flashy materialism of the very Seoul district he came from. The video, shot in about two days, paired a deadpan PSY with a comic “horse-riding” dance performed in deliberately unglamorous settings. It caught fire online over the summer of 2012, boosted by endorsements from American celebrities, and on December 21 of that year it became the first YouTube video to reach a billion views. The song peaked at number two on the Billboard Hot 100 and topped charts in more than thirty countries.

Life after a billion views

PSY followed up in 2013 with “Gentleman,” which reached the top five on the Hot 100 and set its own YouTube record for views in the first 24 hours. He kept releasing his trademark bawdy, comic videos, including “Hangover” with Snoop Dogg in 2014, “DADDY” in 2015, and “New Face” in 2017. None matched the once-in-a-generation reach of “Gangnam Style,” but that was an almost impossible standard; few songs in history have spread as far or as fast. In 2018 he left YG Entertainment, and the following year he founded his own talent agency, P Nation, turning his attention toward developing new Korean artists.

Opening a door

PSY’s importance goes beyond one viral hit. He is widely credited as the first K-pop artist to break through in the Western mainstream, arriving years before acts like BTS and Blackpink became global forces. South Korea’s culture ministry recognized his impact with the Okgwan Order of Cultural Merit in 2012, an acknowledgment that “Gangnam Style” had done more to introduce the world to modern Korean pop than any government campaign could. In 2022 he returned with the album Psy 9th and its single “That That,” produced by and featuring Suga of BTS, and his summer concerts in Korea drew record crowds, proving his live appeal at home had never faded.

Satire under the dance

Part of what made “Gangnam Style” land was the joke underneath it. PSY wrote the song to mock the flash and status-chasing he associated with Gangnam, sometimes called the Beverly Hills of Seoul, a district he happened to come from himself. The video leaned into that irony, placing his deadpan character in stables, parking garages and saunas rather than glamorous settings, and featuring well-known Korean entertainers and a young dancer whose moves had already gone viral at home. He and his choreographer spent about a month building the horse-riding step, aiming for something silly enough to stick. The global response was overwhelming: he performed alongside MC Hammer in Times Square on New Year’s Eve, and even political figures and Hollywood stars were filmed attempting the dance.

The King of YouTube

“Gangnam Style” did not just break records; it strained the technology itself. The video held the title of most-viewed on YouTube from late 2012 until 2017, and at one point its view count climbed so high that YouTube had to upgrade the way it stored the number, because the song had passed a limit the site’s engineers never expected a single video to reach. The song’s refrain was even entered into a respected book of quotations as one of the defining phrases of its year. The media dubbed PSY the “King of YouTube,” a title that captured how completely he had turned an online platform into a global stage.

Most loved songs

A starting point through his catalogue. Each title opens through the in-site player.

One song made him a global name, but his catalogue runs much deeper into Korean pop and comedy. If “Gangnam Style” or another of his tracks is stuck in your head, type it into the search box above to find it.