Zico

Woo Ji-ho (born September 14, 1992), known professionally as Zico, is a South Korean rapper, record producer, singer and songwriter.

Zico was born in Dohwa, Seoul on September 14, 1992.

He was a Vocal Performance major at Seoul Music High School.

In the lyrics of his song "Release", he mentions that he spent a year studying abroad in both Canada and China, as well as three years in Japan.

Meanwhile, he had referred to his time in Japan within his song "Osaka" with fellow Korean musician ELO.

He began his musical career as an underground rapper, going by the name "Nacseo" (Hangul: 낙서), meaning 'doodle' or 'scribble' in Korean.

He promoted as Nacseo in the Japanese underground hip hop scene alongside the crews "Dope Squad" and "Undisputed".

He auditioned for SM Entertainment as a teenager.

In 2009, he officially debuted in a duo with Park Kyung named 'Harmonics' in Korea with the digital single "The Letter".

He joined Stardom Entertainment in 2009.

He featured in IU's song "Marshmallow" as well as Cho PD's "Expectations for K-Hip Hop" and Jung Seul-gi's "Outsiders".

In 2010, he released his first mixtape, Zico on the Block.

The mixtape was well received by the Korean hip hop scene.

He debuted as the leader of the boy band Block B in 2011 and made his first solo release in 2014.

Zico is notable for his crossover skills within the Korean hip hop scene, maintaining an underground reputation along with mainstream appeal as a Korean idol.

He is a record producer of both K-pop and Korean hip hop music.

Zico debuted as the leader of Block B on April 15, 2011 with their first promotional single "Freeze".

Zico had produced their debut mini-album Welcome to the Block.

The Korean Ministry of Gender Equality and Family and public broadcast channel KBS banned the songs "LOL" and "Did You or Did You Not" from minors.

When asked about the banning, he said: ""It's not that we don't consider the regulations when we're producing the songs, but I did often think that our freedom of expression was being interrupted.

Still, I do acknowledge that as a producer that creates songs meant for the public, it was a shortcoming of mine to not have paid more attention to the regulations.""

That year he featured in Hyuna's debut mini-album Bubble Pop! on the track "Just Follow".

He promoted with her on Korean music shows from July to August.

He attended the 2011 MTV EMAs in Belfast, Northern Ireland as part of Block B and on November 27 began hosting the SBS-MTV interactive radio show "Studio C!"

with rap duo Mighty Mouth.

Zico made an appearance at Swings' It's My Year II concert, performing "I'm Still Fly" and "Cocks".

In 2012, he appeared on stage featuring in girl group Wink's song "Stay in Shanghai" on Inkigayo on February 19.

He also performed at the All Force One hip hop festival on July 21, alongside Dok2 and Beenzino.

On October 24, he began co-hosting SBS-MTV's The Show with Block B member P.O.

At the 2012 Mnet Asian Music Awards he participated in a hip hop collaboration called "Beats Rocks The World" with artists including Loco, Double K, Davichi, and Dynamic Duo.

In October, he produced and released a second mixtape, Zico on the Block 1.5.

In December, he co-produced D-Unit's third mini-album.

That year, he also entered Dong-ah Institute of Media and Arts as a Drama major.

Zico performed at Phantom's concert on May 17 and at the ONE Hiphop Festival on September 7.

In August, Zico was dissed in Deepflow(딥플로우)'s response to Swings' "King Swings", a diss track over the instrumental from "Control".

In it, Deepflow accused Zico and Jay Park of only being in hip hop for the money.

Later, rapper Aphelia created a diss track called "Zicontrol", specifically speaking of his frustration with Zico's guaranteed popularity as an idol compared to the difficulty of being a hip hop artist alone.

Dead'P(데드피), in the track "Rap Game Control", also expressed frustration over idols portraying themselves as "hip hop" and the integration of mainstream K-pop culture into the underground hiphop scene.

He is also part of the crew Fanxy Child, which he formed in 2016.

In 2019, he released his first full-length solo album, Thinking.