Song Baek-kyung Announces Exit From 1TYM: “Drawing a Line Under a Messy Past and Starting Again”

Song Baek-kyung has formally announced that he is leaving the hip-hop group 1TYM, making the statement through his social media account.

On June 4, Song wrote on Instagram, “It may feel sudden, but 20 years after the release of our fifth and final album, I am officially leaving 1TYM.” Addressing the fact that his name no longer appears on 1TYM’s profile on the portal site Naver, he added, “Naver did not write the 1TYM group profile incorrectly. I personally asked for my name to be removed from the group.”

The announcement comes roughly 20 years after 1TYM ended promotions for its fifth album, “One Way,” in January 2006. The group’s activities effectively stopped later that year, after member Oh Jin-hwan enlisted for military service in May. Although 1TYM never officially declared a breakup, the group had long been in a situation that was widely seen as no different from disbandment, leading some observers to react that Song’s formal exit felt somewhat unexpected.

The article also notes where another 1TYM member stands today: Teddy is now a top producer and the head of The Black Label, the agency that includes Taeyang, Jeon Somi, Rosé, and Park Bo-gum.

Song also said he has left Moogadang, the mixed-gender group formed in the same year, saying, “I wanted to delete the group itself entirely, but that was not possible by my will alone.”

He explained that his decision to make his exits from both 1TYM and Moogadang clear is tied to his determination to resume music. “Since I am starting my music life again anyway, paradoxically, I wanted to draw a clear line under the messy past that made my younger self, who was doing music, give up music,” he said.

Song further said he is working on music now. “Million sellers, world-class music producers, my music life has no connection or relationship with those things. I am neatly refining and polishing songs that I wanted many people to hear but could not, songs that I had simply kept on a hard disk for more than ten years,” he wrote.

Song debuted with 1TYM in 1998 and released songs including “HOT Tteugeo” and “Kwaejina Chingching.” In 2019, he passed the KBS open recruitment process as part of the 44th class of voice actors and worked in that field. He recently announced that he had wrapped up his voice acting activities.