NATIVE NAME

강다니엘

BORN

December 10, 1996

HOMETOWN

Yeongdo-gu, Busan

BLOOD TYPE

A

HEIGHT

181.5 cm

WEIGHT

67kg approx.

ZODIAC

Sagittarius, Rat (Chinese)

ALLERGIES

Shellfish

FAMILY

Parents and 4 cats (루니 Rooney, 피터 Peter, 오리 Ori, 짱아 Zhang-Ah)

NICKNAMES

Nation’s Center, Niel Ging (cute persona), Niel Chin (sexy persona), Koroong/Kolong, Nation’s Puppy, CEO Kang, God Daniel. [More]

FORMAL EDUCATION

2003-2008 Cheonghak Elementary School
2009-2011 Shinseon Middle School
2012-2013 Peniel High School of the Arts (Modern Dance major; Ballet 2nd major)
GED Certification
2018-2021 Kyunghee Cyber University (Applied Music Department)[s] [s]

DANCING & B-BOYING

Nataraja Academy (Street Dance, Choreography)
Loups Crew under the name FLAC (B-Boying)

LIKES

CATS, skateboarding, dancing, playing video games, reading manga/webtoons, stylish clothes and accessories, cute things, taking walks, and naps. Fan of Harry Potter, Marvel Superheroes (especially Spiderman), Linkin Park, and ASMR

MANGA/ANIME

Bleach, Naruto, One Piece, One-Punch Man, Cowboy Bebop, Haikyuu!, Detective Conan

MOVIES

He considers himself to be a cinephile and one of his dreams is to be a film director. Some of his favorite movies are Akira, The Dark Knight series, Interstellar, Inglourious Basterds, Django Unchained, Star Trek, Marvel movies, and Studio Ghibli movies. His favorite film director is Quentin Tarantino, and his favorite movie line is from Kingsman: The Secret Service, “Manners Maketh Man”

BOOKS

Around the World in Eighty Days, My Sweet Orange Tree, Divine Comedy

PAINTERS

Salvador Dalí and Jean Francois Millet

VIDEO GAMES

League of Legends, PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon, The Witcher, Minecraft

FOOD, SWEETS & DRINKS

Steak (medium rare), ramen, cold noodles, pasta, fried chicken, fried eggs, grilled onions, mandarins, oranges, jellies (Haribo), popcorn. Wine, beer and soju (5:5 mix ratio), Americano

DISLIKES

Insects, dust, strange smells, and too cold or hot things

Daniel has both an artist and CEO ID card to enter KONNECT Ent’s building. His artist ID card’s number is K961210.[s]

Daniel has a weak temporomandibular joint due to dislocating his jaw as a b-boy dancer. Because of this, his jaw often makes a popping sound.

He beats stress by playing games, doing lower body bathing, listening to music, and dancing. When he can’t sleep, he watches his own fancams.

His mom’s conception dream was a jewel in the night sky like a galaxy pouring onto her. During his doljanchi, which is a Korean “fortune telling” tradition celebrated during a baby’s first birthday, Daniel grabbed a pencil. The pencil (one of usually 6 or 8 objects put in a table for the baby to grab) symbolizes that the child is destined to be smart!

On August 2011, Daniel participated in the dance competition Busan City Kids Vol.2 with a b-boy friend and won the final. Other idols that participated in the same competition were fellow Wanna One teammate, Park Woojin, and BTS’s Park Jimin.

His first two cats, Rooney the orange tabby cat (named after Wayne Rooney, a soccer player) and Peter the calico cat (named after Peter Parker/Spiderman), are actually females and former stray cats. Daniel’s younger cats are an Abyssinian named Ori (Korean for “Duck” which is the name of the cat on the Constantine movie) brought shortly after International Cat Day 2018, and a white Ragdoll named Zhang-Ah who is currently the youngest. As of 2022, only Ori and Zhang-Ah live with Daniel, while Rooney and Peter live with his grandmother in Busan. He often talks about them and their different personalities. He refers to them as his “sisters,” and thanked them during an award speech.

Daniel is known for being a huge cat lover. He often times uses cat memes and shares photos of his own cats in the official Wanna One fancafe. When asked during a fansign what breed he would want to be if he was a cat, Daniel said he would want to be an Abyssinian. As for a super power he would like to have, Daniel chose to be able to communicate with cats. His room during Wanna One Go: Zero Base was also cat themed.

During his time as a trainee, Daniel appeared on MBC Every1 Her Secret Weapon, where he performed Uhm Jung-hwa’s “Invitation” as a backup dancer to Fiestar’s Cao Lu and Spica’s Sihyun. Also during this time, Daniel said he didn’t visit his hometown for holidays because he didn’t want to meet his family before achieving something.

For his Produce 101 Season 2 unaired individual evaluation, Daniel did a dance break and sang “Sometimes (가끔)” by Crush. And among the three group evaluations during the show, Daniel considers “Open Up” as his legendary stage.

If he was given the opportunity to act in the future, Daniel mentioned he would like to play a bossy CEO or a lawyer.

Daniel said his nickname during school was soft persimmon since he was naive and tenderhearted.

NATIVE NAME

강다니엘

BORN

December 10, 1996

HOMETOWN

Yeongdo-gu, Busan

HEIGHT

181.5 cm

WEIGHT

67kg approx.

ZODIAC

Sagittarius, Rat (Chinese)

BLOOD TYPE

A

ALLERGIES

Shellfish

FAMILY

Parents and 4 cats
(루니 Rooney, 피터 Peter, 오리 Ori, 짱아 Zhang-Ah)

NICKNAMES

Nation’s Center, Niel Ging (cute persona), Niel Chin (sexy persona), Koroong/Kolong, Nation’s Puppy, CEO Kang, God Daniel. [More]

FORMAL EDUCATION

2003-2008 Cheonghak Elementary School
2009-2011 Shinseon Middle School
2012-2013 Peniel High School of the Arts (Modern Dance major; Ballet 2nd major)
GED Certification
2018-2021 Kyunghee Cyber University (Applied Music Department)[s] [s]

DANCING & B-BOYING

Nataraja Academy (Street Dance, Choreography)
Loups Crew under the name FLAC (B-Boying)

LIKES

CATS, skateboarding, dancing, playing video games, reading manga/webtoons, stylish clothes and accessories, cute things, taking walks, and naps. Fan of Harry Potter, Marvel Superheroes (especially Spiderman), Linkin Park, and ASMR

MANGA/ANIME

Bleach, Naruto, One Piece, One-Punch Man, Cowboy Bebop, Haikyuu!, Detective Conan

MOVIES

He considers himself to be a cinephile and one of his dreams is to be a film director. Some of his favorite movies are Akira, The Dark Knight series, Interstellar, Inglourious Basterds, Django Unchained, Star Trek, Marvel movies, and Studio Ghibli movies. His favorite film director is Quentin Tarantino, and his favorite movie line is from Kingsman: The Secret Service, “Manners Maketh Man”

BOOKS

Around the World in Eighty Days, My Sweet Orange Tree, Divine Comedy

PAINTERS

Salvador Dalí and Jean Francois Millet

VIDEO GAMES

League of Legends, PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon, The Witcher, Minecraft

FOOD, SWEETS & DRINKS

Steak (medium rare), ramen, cold noodles, pasta, fried chicken, fried eggs, grilled onions, mandarins, oranges, jellies (Haribo), popcorn. Wine, beer and soju (5:5 mix ratio), Americano

DISLIKES

Insects, dust, strange smells, and too cold or hot things

Daniel has both an artist and CEO ID card to enter KONNECT Ent’s building. His artist ID card’s number is K961210.[s]

Daniel has a weak temporomandibular joint due to dislocating his jaw as a b-boy dancer. Because of this, his jaw often makes a popping sound.

He beats stress by playing games, doing lower body bathing, listening to music, and dancing. When he can’t sleep, he watches his own fancams.

His mom’s conception dream was a jewel in the night sky like a galaxy pouring onto her. During his doljanchi, which is a Korean “fortune telling” tradition celebrated during a baby’s first birthday, Daniel grabbed a pencil. The pencil (one of usually 6 or 8 objects put in a table for the baby to grab) symbolizes that the child is destined to be smart!

On August 2011, Daniel participated in the dance competition Busan City Kids Vol.2 with a b-boy friend and won the final. Other idols that participated in the same competition were fellow Wanna One teammate, Park Woojin, and BTS’s Park Jimin.

His first two cats, Rooney the orange tabby cat (named after Wayne Rooney, a soccer player) and Peter the calico cat (named after Peter Parker/Spiderman), are actually females and former stray cats. Daniel’s younger cats are an Abyssinian named Ori (Korean for “Duck” which is the name of the cat on the Constantine movie) brought shortly after International Cat Day 2018, and a white Ragdoll named Zhang-Ah who is currently the youngest. As of 2022, only Ori and Zhang-Ah live with Daniel, while Rooney and Peter live with his grandmother in Busan. He often talks about them and their different personalities. He refers to them as his “sisters,” and thanked them during an award speech.

Daniel is known for being a huge cat lover. He often times uses cat memes and shares photos of his own cats in the official Wanna One fancafe. When asked during a fansign what breed he would want to be if he was a cat, Daniel said he would want to be an Abyssinian. As for a super power he would like to have, Daniel chose to be able to communicate with cats. His room during Wanna One Go: Zero Base was also cat themed.

During his time as a trainee, Daniel appeared on MBC Every1 Her Secret Weapon, where he performed Uhm Jung-hwa’s “Invitation” as a backup dancer to Fiestar’s Cao Lu and Spica’s Sihyun. Also during this time, Daniel said he didn’t visit his hometown for holidays because he didn’t want to meet his family before achieving something.

For his Produce 101 Season 2 unaired individual evaluation, Daniel did a dance break and sang “Sometimes (가끔)” by Crush. And among the three group evaluations during the show, Daniel considers “Open Up” as his legendary stage.

If he was given the opportunity to act in the future, Daniel mentioned he would like to play a bossy CEO or a lawyer.

Daniel said his nickname during school was soft persimmon since he was naive and tenderhearted.

From Local B-boy to Nation’s Center

Earlier Life

Daniel was born as Kang Euigeon (강의건) on December 10, 1996 in the coastal city of Busan as the only child of his family. After spending his childhood up to adolescence with his birth name, he later decided to legally change his name due to his family and friends having difficulties pronouncing Euigeon, thus adopting his current name Daniel, with a biblical hero as the source of his inspiration.

During Daniel’s childhood, his family went through financial problems after a business his father ran failed, and they were forced to move into a basement for a week. On the March 22, 2018 episode of MBC’s show Radio Star, Daniel was asked about his habit of smelling things. He revealed he had a trauma from the time he lived in that basement commenting, “The bathroom was right next to the room. The smell of mold and sewer was disgusting, and I smelled it while eating. I became sensitive to smells after that.” Some time later his parents divorced, and Daniel was raised by his mother on her own.

Although dancing is currently his passion, Daniel actually started dancing as a medium for self-healing. On September 4, 2017 during an appearance on KBS Hello Counselor, Daniel revealed that he was bullied in middle school due to his looks. It was then when his teacher suggested he start dancing, and this became a medium for him to cope with the problem and build his self-esteem. In KBS Sketchbook, he shared joining the b-boy club also happened by coincidence since he was planning to join the magic or reading club but missed the opportunity to sign up due to falling asleep. To pursue his passion in dancing, Daniel attended Peniel International High School of the Arts where he majored in modern dance and also Nataraja Academy (나타라자 아카데미), a dance academy in Busan. As a teenager, he was also active in the b-boying community in his hometown and used to perform under the name FLAC.

3-year-old Kang Daniel showing an early interest in music

2014 – 2016: Pre-Debut

Setting his dream to become an idol, Daniel decided to move to Seoul and start a life full of uncertainty as a trainee. For a while, he was a trainee under B2M Entertainment until management separation and later moved under MMO Entertainment. During this training period, Daniel had almost given up on his dream due to the problems faced by his agency. The company was very lacking in facilities, as it was only a house with an underground practice room. It also struggled financially and hence could not afford dance or singing lessons, forcing Daniel to learn them by himself. He lived in a goshiwon since his company did not provide housing or meals. At that time, Daniel thought that he would never get a chance to debut and planned to move to Canada where his aunt lives. However, just before that, a sudden opportunity came by, and he decided to give it one last try.

A breakthrough in Daniel’s quest to become an idol came in early 2017 after his fellow MMO Entertainment trainee, Yoon Jisung, suggested to him and other trainees of the agency to join Produce 101 Season 2. During the promo period of the show, Daniel gained some attention due to the pink hair he sported and his bright image. Fans quickly linked him to the fictional character Baby Apeach from the KakaoTalk chatting app. Yet, despite this initial recognition, Daniel did not immediately become popular, starting the show in rank #23 on the first episode and keeping the same rank for the following one.

This started to change, however, on the third and fourth episodes of the show during the airing of the first Group Battle Evaluation round. His team, joined by Kim Jonghyun, Hwang Minhyun, Ong Seongwu, Kim Jaehwan, and Kwon Hyunbin, was then dubbed as Justice League by fans of the show due to the members’ combined talent and stunning visuals. It was the team’s rendition of Super Junior’s “Sorry Sorry” that prompted the popularity of all the members and went on to become one of the most iconic stages of the whole show with the group’s and Daniel’s focus videos going viral. The viral sensation of his focus video on Naver TV helped him rank 5th during the first elimination that aired on the fifth episode. But this was only the start of his rise in popularity, as in the same episode the image of a pink-haired Kang Daniel with his bunny teeth smile and 60cm broad shoulders became a hot issue among viewers. It was the contrast of his baby face and manly demeanor that raised even more attention and solidified his popularity furthermore.

Since then, Daniel had always been included within the top 11 ranks of the show, despite some ups and downs. [Watch his Position Evaluation “Get Ugly” performance] His fans (known as Peaches) started to envision him as a contender for the 1st rank position, and this vision started to become a realization after the ninth episode of the show. During the episode, Daniel was assigned to the “Open Up” team for the Concept Evaluation round, where he gained massive buzz from the iconic “thigh dance” move that he did for his solo part. That performance seemed to be the seal that cemented his fate, as he unstoppably reached the 1st rank on the tenth episode. During the final episode, he maintained his 1st rank position with a total of 1,578,837 votes – something that was never predicted at the beginning of the show. Thus, he was declared as the overall winner of Produce 101 Season 2 and also as the center of Wanna One, a group the final top 11 trainees of the show would debut in.

Kang Daniel debuted with Wanna One on August 7, 2017 during a special event Wanna One Premier Show-Con held at the Gocheok Sky Dome. They released an extended play 1×1=1 (To Be One) with its title song “Energetic” as their debut mini-album. The extended play was later re-released under the title 1-1=0 (Nothing Without You) with title song “Beautiful” on November 13, 2017. This debut mini-album became a commercial success, with the combined sales of the first album and its repackaged edition reaching more than 1,500,000 copies as of December 2017, giving Wanna One the distinction as the first K-pop group to sell a million copies for their debut album. Their debut was also critically acclaimed, with the group going on to score 23 music show wins in the span of 5 months and winning several music awards, including Best New Artist at the 2017 Melon Music Awards and both Best New Male Group and Best Male Group at the 2017 Mnet Music Awards. This led to the soaring popularity of the group, earning them various television show guesting and endorsement offers (an astounding amount of 16 commercials for a 5 month rookie group), and landing them the sixth place on Gallup Korea’s annual survey for most favorite artist in 2017.

In addition to his commitment with the group, Daniel also had several solo activities throughout 2017. He was signed as an exclusive model by Think Nature (a brand of body and hair care lines) in September 2017 and The Spring Home (a brand of various plushie-themed home bedding products) in November 2017, both resulting in a huge boost of sales and expansion for these brands. He landed his first solo fashion magazine cover and photoshoot for the InStyle October 2017 edition, marking the first time ever InStyle Korea featured a male celeb for its cover. He was confirmed later for another solo fashion magazine photoshoot for a cover and a 27-page spread in GQ Korea, which was due for publication in January 2018. He had various guest appearances on multiple variety shows both with his group mates or by himself. Daniel was also selected as the main cast member for MBC It’s Dangerous Beyond the Blankets (where he appeared in all 3 episodes) and SBS Master Key (where he appeared in 8 out of 13 episodes) alongside fellow Wanna One teammate, Ong Seongwu.

Daniel ended the year on a high note and with tremendous acknowledgement of his work and popularity. Among them, he won the Rising Star category for the 2017 Fashionista Awards conducted by fashion magazine Celeb’s Pick and the Male Idol of The Year category for the 2017 CJ Awards conducted by entertainment company CJ E&M America. South Korean entertainment journalists voted him as first place among the 10 Best Rising Stars of 2017. His work on Master Key also earned him the Best Male Rookie in Variety category at the 2017 SBS Entertainment Awards. On top of all that, he took second place on Gallup Korea’s annual survey for most favorite idols in 2017, signifying the ever important public recognition on his impact in the entertainment industry throughout his debut year.

In 2018, Kang Daniel was included as one of the 5 people in the entertainment field for Forbes 2030 Power Leaders (Korea), a list consisting names of individuals within the age range of 20 to 39 considered as rising stars in their respective field. With this accomplishment to start the year, Daniel continued to make strong marks throughout 2018 for both his individual and group work. His work with Wanna One includes the release of 2 mini albums, one of which is a special album for their unit project (Daniel was a member of the Triple Position unit which won Best Unit Award at the 2018 Mnet Asian Music Awards), and one full album as their final comeback. The group also embarked on a world tour titled One: The World from June to September which comprises 20 concerts, 14 cities, and 11 countries. On November 6, Wanna One finally won their first Daesang for Song of the Year with “Beautiful” at the 2018 MBC Plus X Genie Music Awards, their first one in 456 days since their debut. This was followed by other Daesangs for Record of the Year with 1¹¹=1 (Power of Destiny) at the 2018 Melon Music Awards and Artist of the Year at the 2018 Korea Popular Music Awards, both in December.

Among his most notable individual works this year, his participation as a fixed cast member for the regular season of MBC’s It’s Dangerous Beyond the Blanket awarded him the Male Rookie of the Year in Variety at the 2018 MBC Entertainment Awards. He also became one the highest paid celebrities in the advertisement field through his individual work with several brands. He continued to show a strong sales effect with both his aforementioned brand partners – Think Nature and The Spring Home – and the new ones – LAP Korea, Hite Jinro, Bokuk Electronics, Kissing Heart, and his collaboration with French luxury brand CHANEL as its latest muse for their fine jewelry and watches in a pictorial for Elle Korea’s July issue. Reaching a rare high of 100,000 copies sold in a week, it was not a surprise when Daniel’s July issue won Best Cover at the 2018 Elle Style Awards on November 2018. His status as a star in the advertising world was further cemented with the record of topping Brand Reputation Ranking for Individual Boy Group Members for 13 consecutive months and winning Daesang for Best Male CF Model at the 2018 Brand of the Year Awards. Furthermore, Daniel made use of this high status to spread a positive influence with philanthropic activities throughout the year, such as taking part in the last Letter From Angels campaign created by renowned photographer Cho Seihon to foment domestic adoptions and support single mothers, and as part of his 23rd birthday celebration on December 10, he donated 12.1 million won to the Miral Welfare Foundation to help children with disabilities.

Kang Daniel closed the year 2018 with the end of Wanna One’s contract on December 31st, 2018, although Wanna One would still attend award shows and their final concerts in January. To commemorate this moment on the group’s fancafe, Daniel expressed, “Wannables, think of it this way. Rather than the word ‘disband’, it’s a graduation! After graduating from school from a long time, your heart doesn’t close. With fond memories, let’s wish to meet and greet each other again.”

At the start of 2019, Kang Daniel opened his personal Instagram account thisisdaniel_k, gaining 1 million followers in 11 hours 36 minutes and breaking a Guinness World Record previously held by Pope Francisco, who got 1 million Instagram followers in 12 hours back in 2016. This impressive achievement gained Daniel immense media attention from international outlets such as the BBC, Time Magazine, Vanity Fair Italy and Times of India, which is India’s most widely read English newspaper, among many others from around the world. On January 21, his company then announced the opening of his official Daum fancafe, breaking another record for the fastest idol to gain 100,000 fancafe members in 39 hours.

Daniel officially ended his activities with Wanna One on January 27 after 4 days of concerts (titled Therefore) charged with emotions and amazing performances. The 11 members of Wanna One bid their final goodbyes as a group and welcomed the beginning of a new chapter in their careers. For Daniel and fellow member Yoon Jisung, who both belonged to MMO Entertainment, their new chapter started on January 31 with the announcement of a change in their management company. From that point onwards, LM Entertainment would be managing their activities, starting with the opening of their official websites and other social media accounts.

However, it was reported on March 3 that Daniel had asked to revise his contract with LM Entertainment in February. On the same day as when news of the dispute broke, Daniel addressed his fans through his fancafe, assuring them to trust and wait for him as “the truth will be known,” as well as informing them that he would open a new Instagram account the following day. The new account daniel.k.here was opened on March 4 at 12 PM KST, and fans reacted by starting a daily hashtag project using #ForeverWithDaniel, #WeTrustDaniel and #BeYourselfDaniel on Twitter. The first two hashtags trended worldwide in 1st and 4th place respectively. On March 7, it was reported that lawyer Seon Jongmoon (Sun & Partners) had been appointed as his legal representative. As the disagreement between Daniel and LM Entertainment was expected to turn into a legal battle, Daniel appointed law firm Yulchon as his legal representative on March 14. This was followed by an injunction filing for the suspension of his contract on March 19 and a contract termination lawsuit filed on March 21. It was revealed that the cause of the dispute was LM breaching Daniel’s contract by signing joint business contracts that sold his exclusive contract rights to third parties without his consent.

Following a series of rebuttals in addition to LM’s inconsistent statements and attempts to delay the court proceeding, the injunction hearing was held on April 24 at Seoul Central District Court. It was during this hearing that Daniel’s side made the statement that “Even if the joint business contract is cancelled, we won’t keep the exclusive contract as the trust is broken.” Following the hearing, the court allotted one week for Daniel’s side to submit additional evidence by May 1. LM submitted 80 pages of information, so the court told LM to remove the redundancies and was given until May 8 to resubmit. On May 10, the court finally made its decision and ruled in favor of Daniel’s side with a full citation, meaning the judge sided with Daniel on every argument presented. As a result, the exclusive contract between Daniel and LM was suspended, and LM is not allowed to interfere in Daniel’s activities and cannot negotiate or sign contracts on his behalf or require him to pursue activities on their behalf. LM Entertainment stated they would object to the court decision, and it was later revealed the objection hearing was set for June 26. LM Entertainment’s appeal regarding the contract suspension was rejected by the Seoul Central District Court on July 11.

After 4 months of forced hiatus, Daniel surprised his fans with an Instagram Live on June 9, updating them with his debut preparations and relaying the message, “Now I will run to you guys. See you soon.” The next day, Sports Donga dropped big news that Daniel had established a one-man agency KONNECT Entertainment (커넥트ENT) and that he would make his debut under such. The news was confirmed by a KONNECT Entertainment representative, who also revealed the agency’s name comes from the words “Korea” and “connect,” meaning that Kang Daniel aims to connect Korea to the rest of the world through his future activities.

His first activity didn’t take too long to happen, as it was revealed on June 12 that Kang Daniel had given his consent to assume the honorary ambassadorship role for his hometown, the city of Busan, and would actively and voluntarily promote the city through various public activities. The official appointment ceremony happened on July 9 at Busan Sajik Baseball Stadium, the home stadium of the Lotte Giants team. In addition to receiving the official letter of appointment and plaque from Busan’s mayor Oh Geodon, Daniel also received the honor of throwing the first pitch at a KBO League baseball match between the Lotte Giants and NC Dinos, in front of an audience of 15,651 baseball game spectators and more than 30,000 people streaming in real time. [Read more]

Kang Daniel debuted as a soloist on July 25 with the special EP color on me. Selling more than 460,000 copies on Hanteo Chart, the EP set records for both the highest first-day and first-week physical sales for a solo artist since the chart’s inception, and went on to receive a Double Platinum certification from Gaon Chart. On August 9, the title track “What are you up to” gave Daniel his first-ever solo music show win on KBS2’s Music Bank. Following the release of this EP, Daniel held six fan-sign events and embarked on his first solo fan-meeting tour, visiting six different cities throughout Asia: Singapore, Bangkok, Taipei, Kuala Lumpur, and Manila. During this time, Daniel could not promote his music in Korea due to the ongoing legal battle. The battle concluded on September 27 with a contract termination after CEMA mediated. Daniel had his first public performance in Korea on October 25 at Busan One Asia Festival. Daniel’s tour concluded in Seoul with a two-day fan meet on November 23-24 and a special exhibition on November 22-24, all held at KINTEX in Ilsan. He previewed his digital single “TOUCHIN'” at the occasion and proceeded to promote on music and variety shows for the first time in his solo career. After Daniel promoted  his single for a week, KONNECT Entertainment announced he would be taking a break due to health issues. Daniel went on hiatus from December to February.

In 2020, Daniel returned with Portland travel reality show Hello, Daniel, which premiered on March 4 on SBS MTV and SBS FiL. KONNECT Entertainment opened Cafe de KONNECT on the first floor of the company’s building and for a period of time sold Apeach special menu items due to the CF with Kakao Friends. On March 24, he released his second EP CYAN, the first album in his color trilogy project. CYAN‘s lead single “2U” became Daniel’s first top ten track on the Gaon Digital weekly charts. As part of the Pepsi and Starship Entertainment collaboration project “For The Love of Korea”, Daniel and ZICO released a song together titled “Refresh” on April 23, which was co-produced by Steve Aoki. On June 19, Kang released his first drama OST “Something” for SBS’s romantic comedy Backstreet Rookie. To celebrate the first anniversary of Daniel’s solo debut, he held an online fan-meeting DAN1TYST on July 25. As a gift to attendees, he previewed the music video for “Waves”, a single from his next album in the color trilogy.

Daniel released his third EP MAGENTA on August 3. With this album, Daniel’s physical sales surpassed one million cumulative albums within 13 months of his solo debut. In November, KONNECT opened pre-orders for Kang’s first artbook Never Standing Still – It’s Time to Shine, created in collaboration with Paul McCartney’s personal photographer MJ Kim. Later that month, he was revealed as the fourth artist to join NCSOFT’s K-pop entertainment platform UNIVERSE. Daniel and his staff concluded the year by handcrafting 100 book covers within 2 weeks and donating to the Holt Children’s Services Protect Me campaign.

In early 2021, KONNECT Entertainment announced Kang Daniel would feature in a single produced by American artist Inverness called “State of Wonder,” alongside producer and singer Anthony Russo. Both of them had previously worked with Daniel in his album MAGENTA. Shortly after the release of “State of Wonder” on January 15, teasers for Kang Daniel’s official comeback were released at the beginning of February. A week later, KONNECT released the digital single’s cover image and described “PARANOIA” as a new turning point. 

The digital single “PARANOIA” was released on February 16 to much praise and commercial success. The single gave Kang Daniel his first entry at #5 on Billboard’s World Digital Song Sales chart,[s] and debuted at #2 in the Gaon digital chart, making it his highest charting song to date. During his appearance on MBC’s program Radio Star, Daniel said he wrote “PARANOIA” when he was on hiatus in 2019 due to mental and physical health issues, so the song is very dark. The song expressed his paranoia that he might harm himself. He confessed he lost his will to live but overcame his condition after being inspired by other artists.[s] [s] In this sense KBS news reporter Jeong Ji-eun praised the song saying, “I would like to applaud Kang Daniel for releasing the darkest part of himself with talent in order to give strength to someone who may have a similar heartache.”[s] About the music video, Elle Korea wrote in an article, “The music video for ‘PARANOIA’ is not just a music video for showing. You can feel his complex feelings and sincerity. Isn’t this the reason why many people can relate to it?”[s]

In April, the fancafe mobile application was officially made available, and the website was redesigned. Daniel released his third mini album YELLOW on April 13 with “Antidote” as its lead single. He topped the weekly Gaon digital, download, BGM, and album charts, earning a quadruple crown. Daniel took home five music show trophies, including his first Inkigayo win as a solo artist on the last day of music show promotions. On April 29, Dalcom Soft launched the SuperStar KANGDANIEL mobile rhythm game app. This is the first time a SuperStar series was created exclusively for a solo artist. On May 13, the UNIVERSE MUSIC single “Outerspace” with LOCO was released. In July 2021, Daniel was confirmed to be the MC of Mnet’s first female dance crew competition show Street Woman Fighter and part of the Cyworld BGM 2021 remake lineup. KONNECT would also be partnering with CL’s Very Cherry to manage her domestic activities. For Daniel’s second year since debut anniversary, KONNECT prepared a 24-hour virtual reality fanmeeting titled DAN2TY& and other online activities.[s] [s] In addition, Chancellor and GFRIEND’s YUJU were announced as KONNECT artists in August and September. Daniel featured in J-rockstar MIYAVI’s sixth track “Hush Hush” from his September 15 album Imaginary and participated in the Cyworld BGM project, remaking Epik High’s “Fly” with Chancellor. In November, Daniel concluded filming his first acting role in the Disney Plus Korea first original Kdrama Rookie Cops. To wrap up the year, Daniel reprised his MC role in the SWF spinoff show Street Dance Girls Fighter.

Share This, Choose Your Platform!