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Update note: This article was originally published in 2018, before the events known as the Burning Sun scandal came to light. Since this article was written, Lee Seung-hyun (Seungri) was convicted in 2021 of multiple charges related to the Burning Sun scandal and is no longer active in the entertainment industry. We have preserved the original 2018 reporting on his business ventures here for archival purposes, with no editorial endorsement of his post-2018 conduct. BIGBANG's other members (G-Dragon, T.O.P, Taeyang, Daesung) have continued separate careers.
Back in 2018, when BIGBANG was wrapping up its Last Dance tour and its members were preparing to enlist in the Korean military, fans had a running joke about the group's youngest member, Seungri: he might be the maknae onstage, but offstage he was running a small business empire. Between a Japanese-style ramen franchise, a luxury Gangnam bar, a record label, and a string of side ventures, Seungri's name appeared on dozens of business registrations across Korea and Asia. At one point, fans wondered out loud whether the BIGBANG maknae was bringing in more money than YG Entertainment itself.
This article, originally written for Daebak Magazine in 2018, looked at the headline-grabbing companies behind the question. It is reproduced here as a snapshot of how Seungri's business profile was discussed at the time, before his 2019 indictment and 2021 conviction in the Burning Sun case changed the public conversation around him entirely.
BIGBANG's Maknae as a Part-Time CEO
By 2018, Seungri had spent more than a decade as the youngest member of BIGBANG, the YG Entertainment group that helped reshape K-pop in the late 2000s. He had released two solo studio albums in Korea, multiple Japanese solo releases, and appeared on a long list of Korean variety shows. None of that, on its own, was unusual for a senior idol of his rank.
What set him apart at the time was that he had spent the same decade quietly building a portfolio of companies. He was credited as a part-time CEO or co-founder on several profitable ventures: an EDM record label, an upscale Gangnam bar, a 45-branch ramen franchise, and various overseas spin-offs. Korean entertainment media regularly framed him as the group's "businessman," and clips from variety shows in which he discussed monthly revenues went viral on Korean and global K-pop forums.
Natural High Records, the EDM Label
One of the first ventures most fans heard about was Natural High Records, an EDM-focused label founded by Seungri. The label signed DJ Glory, TPA, and a small roster of dance music acts, and toured them through Japanese club dates in 2017 and 2018. Promotional materials from the label's official Instagram in mid-2018 showed Seungri appearing alongside the artists at events in Sapporo, Osaka, and Fukuoka.
Natural High Records operated under the broader YG Entertainment umbrella for distribution and rights, which gave Seungri a piece of an emerging dance-music vertical inside one of Korea's largest agencies. For fans, this was the most visible example of Seungri's habit of using his BIGBANG income to launch parallel businesses rather than only collecting royalties.
Monkey Museum, the Gangnam Luxury Bar
Seungri's best-known nightlife venture at the time was Monkey Museum, an appointment-only luxury bar in Cheongdam-dong, the high-end district of Gangnam in Seoul. The bar opened in 2016 and quickly became a fixture of Korean tabloid coverage, in part because of its drink list. Korean media reports from the period highlighted Monkey Museum's stock of Armand de Brignac champagne, often called "Ace of Spades," with bottles priced in the millions of won.
The bar drew international celebrity visitors. Allkpop and other K-entertainment outlets reported that figures including Jay-Z were among the foreign guests who had stopped by during Seoul visits. Co-run with Yoo In-suk, then CEO of investment firm Yuri Holdings, Monkey Museum was the venture that most clearly tied Seungri's name to Gangnam's high-end nightlife scene.
It is worth noting, from today's vantage point, that Monkey Museum and its sister club Burning Sun (which Seungri launched in 2018) would later sit at the center of the criminal cases brought against him. In 2018, however, Korean media coverage of these venues was largely framed around their celebrity clientele and luxury price tags.
Aori Ramen, the Franchise Empire
The venture that drew the most attention internationally was Aori Ramen, a Japanese-style tonkotsu ramen chain that Seungri helped launch and built into a multi-country franchise. By the spring of 2018, Aori Ramen had opened its 31st branch in Gwangmyeong, just outside Seoul, on top of the 26 it already operated inside Korea. The brand's official Instagram celebrated the new openings in Korean, Japanese, Chinese, and English.
In a July 2018 episode of the variety show Ugly Duckling, Seungri told fellow entertainer Lee Sang-min that he was running 45 Aori Ramen branches in Korea and that each location was bringing in roughly 200 million won, about $180,000, per month. Korean and English-language K-pop media seized on the quote, and clips of Seungri jokingly calling himself "Seung-sby" (a play on "Gatsby") spread through fan communities.
F.T. Island's Choi Jong-hoon, then still active as an idol, became one of the franchisees, taking over the 33rd Aori Ramen branch in June 2018. The international expansion accelerated through 2018 with new locations in Japan, Taiwan, and Shanghai, drawing both Korean diners and international BIGBANG fans on Seoul food tours.
So, Was He Earning More Than YG?
The honest answer in 2018 was no, not by a long shot. YG Entertainment was a publicly traded agency that booked annual revenues in the hundreds of billions of won. Seungri's combined ventures, even at their peak, were a small fraction of that, and most of his individual companies had outside investors or co-owners rather than being wholly his.
What the comparison really captured was a feeling among fans: that the BIGBANG maknae had built an unusually visible second career as a businessman while still active as an idol, and that his personal brand seemed to extend further than any one BIGBANG concert tour or solo single. He appeared on lifestyle covers, hosted Korean variety segments about his side ventures, and used his BIGBANG fame as a marketing engine for the ramen chain in particular.
How This Story Looks Today
The original Daebak Magazine article, published in 2018, ended on a lighthearted recommendation to try Aori Ramen the next time readers visited Korea. With the benefit of hindsight, that ending no longer reflects how this story is now told in Korean media.
In early 2019, reporting around the Burning Sun nightclub in Gangnam unraveled into a broader criminal investigation involving Seungri and his business partners. He was indicted later that year on multiple charges, retired from the entertainment industry, and was convicted in 2021 by a military court. His business interests in Aori Ramen, Burning Sun, and Monkey Museum were unwound, the Aori Ramen franchise cut public ties with him, and franchise owners filed compensation lawsuits citing collapsed sales. BIGBANG's remaining members have continued separate careers without him.
We are leaving this older article online with the update note above because the broken-link recovery project that brought it back is about preserving the historical record of what Daebak Magazine covered, not about endorsing any of the figures involved.
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