B.I
Kim Han-bin helped build iKON’s musical spine, lost the career everybody thought was permanent, then rebuilt around the one thing nobody could confiscate: he knows how to write a song people need to hear twice.
- Before iKON: a child already inside the credits
- iKON: leader, writer, and musical engine
- The 2019 drug case: what is confirmed
- 131 and the rebuilding years
- Producer and songwriter file
- Where to start listening
- 2026: “BUZZIN” and military service
- Fandom file
- Zodiac side quest: Libra plus Fire Rat
- Official doors and receipts
Kim Han-bin, known professionally as B.I, is a South Korean rapper, singer, songwriter, producer, dancer, and solo artist. He debuted as the leader of iKON in 2015, wrote or co-wrote much of the group’s defining catalog, left the group and YG Entertainment in 2019, and officially launched his solo career in 2021.
If you first met him through “BTBT,” the backstory can feel almost impossible. This is the same artist who helped construct “LOVE SCENARIO,” one of the most culturally dominant Korean pop songs of its generation. It is also the same person whose 2019 drug case ended his iKON career and later resulted in a suspended prison sentence. A serious profile has to hold the music, the harm, the punishment, and the rebuilding in the same frame.
Before iKON: a child already inside the credits
B.I was not a trainee whose first contact with the music business happened at a company audition. As a child, he appeared on MC Mong’s 2009 track and promotions for “Indian Boy.” That early visibility did not guarantee a smooth debut. It meant he understood unusually young that music could be work, hierarchy, public judgment, and identity all at once.
He joined YG Entertainment as a trainee in 2011. By the time WIN: Who Is Next aired in 2013, Han-bin was leading Team B while still a teenager. The edit made his intensity impossible to miss. He wrote, corrected formations, absorbed responsibility, and sometimes pushed with the grace of somebody who had not yet learned that leadership and panic can wear the same face.
Team B lost the competition to Team A, which debuted as WINNER. Han-bin, Bobby, Jinhwan, Junhoe, Yunhyeong, and Donghyuk remained in the system. MIX & MATCH followed in 2014, adding Chanwoo and producing the seven-member lineup that debuted as iKON.
iKON: leader, writer, and musical engine
2015 debut
iKON officially debuted in 2015. B.I served as leader and became central to the group’s writing and production. That does not mean every iKON song was a solo B.I project wearing seven faces. Bobby’s rap identity, the vocalists’ delivery, performance direction, producers, and the members’ chemistry mattered. It does mean Han-bin carried an unusually large amount of authorship for a newly debuted idol leader.
“MY TYPE,” “RHYTHM TA,” “APOLOGY,” “DUMB & DUMBER,” and “WHAT’S WRONG?” established a group that could swing from bratty hip-hop to bruised melody. The catalog already showed B.I’s main strength: he understood that toughness without emotional contrast gets boring.
2018 and “LOVE SCENARIO”
“LOVE SCENARIO” turned iKON from a successful idol group into a cultural event. Children sang it, adults recognized it, and the melody escaped the normal limits of fandom promotion. B.I received the 2018 Melon Music Award for Songwriter of the Year, an unusually visible acknowledgment of an idol producer’s authorship.
The song is a useful summary of his writing. The language is direct enough to remember after one listen, but the emotional position is complicated. The relationship is over; the narrator is hurt; the memories are still worth keeping. B.I repeatedly writes from that uncomfortable middle, where love can be real without being sustainable.
More than one hit
Reducing his iKON work to “LOVE SCENARIO” is lazy. “KILLING ME,” “GOODBYE ROAD,” “I’M OK,” “BLING BLING,” and album tracks across the catalog show different versions of the same producer brain. He also wrote or contributed to songs for other artists, including work associated with WINNER, BLACKPINK, Lee Hi, PSY, and Epik High. Credits should be checked song by song, but the breadth is not fan exaggeration.
The 2019 drug case: what is confirmed
In June 2019, reports alleged that B.I had attempted to purchase LSD and marijuana in 2016. He left iKON and YG Entertainment as the controversy opened. The legal process continued after the public resignation.
In 2021, a Seoul court convicted him on charges connected to purchasing and using marijuana and purchasing LSD. He received a three-year prison term suspended for four years, plus community service, drug-treatment education, and a fine. A suspended sentence is not an acquittal. It means the prison term does not take effect if the conditions of the suspension are met.
Fans do not need to invent innocence to discuss proportionality, media spectacle, mental health, or South Korea’s drug laws. They also do not need to turn one conviction into permission to describe a human being as permanently disposable. The accurate position is more demanding: he committed offenses, faced legal punishment, lost his group and company, and later returned to public work. All of those things are true.
The case also affected iKON. Members lost a leader and a major writer without a gentle transition. Songs, recordings, public identity, and fan trust had to be reorganized. B.I’s rebuilding story should never flatten the labor the remaining members did to keep iKON alive.
131 and the rebuilding years
Charity releases before the full solo debut
B.I re-entered music publicly through 131. Midnight Blue (Love Streaming) arrived in March 2021 as a donation project. His first full studio album, Waterfall, followed on June 1, 2021. Its writing did not pretend the missing years had been a mysterious vacation. Shame, isolation, fear, ambition, and the desire to keep moving became part of the record’s architecture.
Proceeds and copyright income connected to the donation projects were directed toward World Vision initiatives. That does not erase the case, and it should not be used as a morality coupon. It is still concrete action and belongs in the record.
Cosmos, “BTBT,” and global expansion
Cosmos arrived in November 2021 with a brighter, more romantic center. Then “BTBT,” released in 2022 with DeVita and Soulja Boy, became the solo song that reached far beyond people already monitoring his comeback. The choreography, low-slung groove, and melodic hook made it easy to encounter before knowing any biography.
The Love or Loved project split desire into stages. Part 1 leaned into attraction and intoxication; Part 2 examined what remains after the rush. English-language work and international collaborations were not an attempt to disguise him as a Western artist. They expanded the routes into a catalog still shaped by Korean songwriting instincts and his own rhythmic phrasing.
To Die For and the live artist
To Die For returned to youth as something brief, reckless, beautiful, and impossible to store safely. Touring also changed the scale of his solo identity. A former group leader can know how to command a stage and still have to relearn the emotional logistics of being the only name carrying the night.
Producer and songwriter file
B.I writes like somebody who distrusts emotional vagueness but loves emotional contradiction. His best hooks can be understood immediately. The verses complicate them afterward. Love is salvation and bad judgment. Youth is freedom and impending loss. Confidence arrives while the narrator is still negotiating with shame.
His process has changed with independence. Under iKON, he wrote for a group whose voices and performance structure he knew intimately. As a soloist, every abandoned idea reflects directly on him. In interviews around Waterfall and Love or Loved, he described becoming more willing to choose the song he wanted rather than automatically accepting outside direction.
The result is not one fixed genre. Hip-hop, R&B, synth-pop, guitar pop, dance music, and stripped confession all sit in the catalog. The continuity is phrasing. Even when somebody else sings the line, his writing often sounds like it is already leaning toward the next beat.
Where to start listening
| Release | What it opens |
|---|---|
| “LOVE SCENARIO” with iKON | The clean melodic storytelling that made his writing legible to an enormous public. |
| “KILLING ME” with iKON | Darker momentum, guilt, and a hook that feels physically trapped. |
| Waterfall | The full rebuilding record. Start here if you want context rather than only the prettiest single. |
| “illa illa” | A solo debut statement that turns isolation into motion. |
| “BTBT” | The global gateway: sensual groove, sharp choreography, and immediate replay value. |
| “Keep me up” | The nocturnal side of Love or Loved, sleek without becoming empty. |
| To Die For | Youth examined after the artist has already lost one version of it. |
| “Freak” with BM | A collaborative entry point. Read CVM Sekai’s “Freak” review. |
2026: “BUZZIN” and military service
B.I released “BUZZIN” before beginning his mandatory service as a public service worker on March 16, 2026. The service creates a pause in promotions, not a retroactive ending to the catalog. His existing releases, credits, performances, and official channels remain the source of current profile information while he is away.
This is also where date accuracy matters. A profile should say he began service in March 2026, not keep describing enlistment as an upcoming event months after it happened. CVM Sekai will update the status when 131 announces the completion date or a verified change.
Fandom file
- Name: the stage name B.I is commonly explained as a shortened form of “Be I,” an identity statement built around becoming himself.
- Number 131: the label name visually connects B, I, and the number forms associated with his stage identity.
- Family: his younger sister Hanbyul has appeared publicly with him. Publicly shared family material is fair context; private relatives are not scavenger-hunt content.
- Fan name: his solo fandom is ID, read as “Be Identity,” continuing the identity theme.
- Artist test: he easily clears CVM Sekai’s solo requirement. Waterfall alone would settle it; the rest of the discography turns the question into comedy.
- Former-member label: “former iKON leader” is historical fact, not his entire current job title.
Zodiac side quest: Libra plus Fire Rat
Western sign: Libra
Libra is supposed to chase balance, beauty, and connection. Han-bin’s catalog behaves like a Libra who keeps putting opposite emotions in the same room to see whether they can write a chorus together.
Chinese zodiac: Fire Rat
The Rat is associated with strategy, adaptability, speed, and survival. Fire adds nerve and intensity. That combination sounds uncomfortably accurate for a teenage team leader who became a hit songwriter, lost the original structure, and built another one instead of waiting for permission.
YouTube tracking history
Primary B.I solo videos. Daily gains and total views update through CVM Sekai’s YouTube tracking history.
Sources
- 131 official notice: 2026 Last Parade Tour encore
- B.I Japan official: 2026 Tokyo tour notice
- B.I official Instagram
- 131 official YouTube
- B.I official X
- GRAMMY.com: B.I on Love or Loved Pt. 1
- Allure: B.I on “BTBT,” self-care, and burnout
- NME: B.I on To Die For
- Yonhap: 2021 sentencing report
- Manila Bulletin: 2026 military-service announcement
Related CVM Sekai: “Freak” featuring B.I review