Deux (band)

Lee Hyun-do and Kim Sung-jae first met in high school, when a friend of Lee's introduced the two together.^[2] Before Deux were formed, Lee and Kim started their careers as members of Wawa, the dance team of singer Hyun Jin-young.^[3] The previous members Kang Won-rae and Koo Jun-yup, who were to enlist in the military, suggested Hyun take in Kim Sung-jae, who later brought in Lee Hyun-do.^[4][5] Lee and Kim separated from Hyun Jin-young's dance team to form Deux,^[4] and on 23 April 1993, Deux made their official debut.^[6] Their first album was fully produced by Lee Hyun-do.^[7]

At the beginning of 1994, the group released their second album, Deuxism, its lead single the song "We Are".^[8] The album sold 300,000 copies a month and a half after its release,^[9] and "We Are" topped the charts of the SBS music program TV Gayo 20 for five consecutive weeks.^[10] Deux's next album, Rhythm Light Beat Black, included both remixes of their old work and new songs.^[11] At the end of 1994, Deux won the SCK Popularity Award at the Golden Disc Awards (then named the Korea Visual and Records Grand Prize Award).^[12]

Force Deux, the group's third studio album, was released in April 1995. Seeing over a million pre-orders, the album accumulated 900,000 sales a month and a half after its release. The lead track, "Break Off the Yoke", charted high on the three major Korean broadcasters' (KBS, MBC, and SBS) music programs, almost winning to Roo'ra's "Angel Without Wings" on SBS's TV Gayo 20.^[13]

On 7 June 1995, Deux held a press conference announcing their disbandment, citing health issues caused by their busy schedules. The group stated that they would hold a free "goodbye concert" from 7—8 July, and after a TV Gayo 20 performance on 17 July would completely split up.^[14][15] In November, Kim Sung-jae released his debut solo album, but he was found dead on 20 November, a day after his first performance.^[16] Lee Hyun-do announced his retirement following Kim's death, but returned with a solo album in 1996.^[17] The next year, a greatest hits album called Deux Forever was released, which included an unreleased track called "Love, Fear". The song was originally meant for Kim Sung-jae's second solo album; Lee Hyun-do made it a duet by adding his own vocals to the track.^[18]

Deux's music is influenced by various kinds of black music,^[7] including hip hop, R&B, and new jack swing.^[19][20] Lee Hyun-do produced most of their output, while Kim Sung-jae took charge of the choreography and fashion.^[21][22] Along with groups like Seo Taiji and Boys and Noise [ko], they were part of the "rap-dance" trend of the early 1990s.^[1][8] Kim Seong-hwan of the Korean Popular Music Institute wrote, "Their intense choreography, which was more faithful to B-boying than other dance groups, and their music, which was closer to overseas black music trends, clearly differentiated them from Seo Taiji and Boys and Hyun Jin-young."^[10] Their lyrics, also written mostly by Lee Hyun-do, often focused on love and self-reflection.^[23]

Deux has been credited as one of the key groups that popularized black music in South Korea^[24][25] and a major factor in the development of Korean hip-hop;^[26] music critic Han Dong-yoon wrote in a Jugan Kyunghyang article that after Deux, "Korean hip-hop and dance music began to show rapid growth".^[7] They are said to be the first artists in the country to release a song consisting purely of rapping, with the track "Untitled".^[27][28] Fashion items worn by the group, including sunglasses and bags, also trended amongst young people;^[20][24][29] in a survey of 500 high schoolers conducted by Kia Group in 1994, Deux were named as one of the artists whose fashion the youth imitated most.^[30]

In 2013, Mnet included Deux on their Legend 100 Artists list.^[31] Deuxism and Force Deux ranked 81st and 35th place respectively on Kyunghyang Shinmun's Top 100 Korean Popular Music Albums list.^[1][32] The group's debut song, "Turn Around and Look at Me", was one of the 100 best songs in Korean pop music history by Rolling Stone magazine.^[25] For the group's 20th anniversary in 2013, a tribute album project went underway, on which musicians like Brave Brothers, Shinsadong Tiger, and Muzie participated.^[33]