40 Fun Facts About BtoB

BtoB's name is an acronym of which phrase, also used as the title of the group's 2012 debut EP?

Born to Beat is the phrase behind the name, which is pronounced BEE-too-bee and is often written in capital letters.

BtoB rapper Peniel, a former JYP trainee, was born in which American city?

Chicago is his birthplace, and he grew up in its suburbs before moving to Seoul to train. He is also a photographer who has staged two exhibitions under the punning title Penography.

Which agency, once home to Beast and 4Minute, formed BtoB and launched the group in 2012?

Cube Entertainment launched the group through a new sub-label. The members stayed for eleven years, then left together when their contracts ended in 2023.

BtoB's fan club is known by which musical term, also in the title of a 2014 ballad dedicated to fans?

Melody is the name fans go by, and charity gifts are often made under it. Relief money after the 2019 Sokcho fire was donated in the joint name of the group and its fan club.

BtoB's Jung Il-hoon popularised the gestures for which cute counting routine that became a viral song in 2013?

Gwiyomi, roughly 'cutie', spread after he performed the moves on a variety show. He never claimed to have invented them, saying a fellow trainee had taught him.

On the reality show We Got Married, BtoB's Yook Sung-jae was paired with which member of Red Velvet?

Joy and her on-screen husband released the duet Young Love, wrote its lyrics together and won Best Couple at the 2015 MBC Entertainment Awards.

Yook Sung-jae of BtoB played Yoo Deok-hwa, nephew to which actor's immortal goblin in a hit 2016 tvN drama?

Gong Yoo led Guardian: The Lonely and Great God, which drew some of the highest ratings in Korean cable history and won him Best Actor at the Baeksang Arts Awards.

The logo BtoB unveiled with the 2014 EP Move turns the two capital Bs of the name into which shape?

Hearts form the pair of Bs, standing for the group's love for its fans and its wish to make music that touches people.

BtoB rapper Jung Il-hoon featured on Roll Deep, the 2015 lead single by which soloist and labelmate?

Hyuna brought him in for the track and for work on its parent EP, A+. Clashing schedules meant he performed the song on stage with her only twice.

BtoB appeared as themselves, an idol group, in an episode of which 2013 high-school drama starring Lee Min-ho?

The Heirs featured the group in its fourth episode, when the band was less than two years past its debut. The drama is set in a school for the ultra-rich.

Which 2015 R&B song was BtoB's first ballad title track and their first single to top several Korean music charts?

It's Okay topped several music charts on release, more than three years after the group's debut. Its video casts the members as strugglers chasing dreams, from an art student to a delivery rider.

BtoB won their first music show trophy, three years and seven months after debut, with which 2015 ballad?

Way Back Home took the prize on Show Champion in October 2015. Its video plays like a short drama, with one of the group's rappers as the lead actor.

Which 2017 pop ballad, written by Im Hyun-sik, became BtoB's highest-charting single on the Gaon Digital Chart?

Missing You peaked at number two and went on to spend 87 weeks on the Melon chart, at the time the second-longest run by an idol group's song.

Which 2015 release was BtoB's first full-length album, opening with an a cappella intro that shares its title?

Complete arrived in June 2015 with thirteen tracks, among them an acoustic remake of the group's debut single and an outro written by its youngest rapper.

Which 2012 title track from the EP Press Play did BtoB re-record as their first Japanese single?

Wow, composed by hitmaker Kim Do-hoon, came out in Japanese in November 2014, a month after the group signed with a Japanese agency, Kiss Entertainment.

Which 2014 EP, with a title track produced by Brave Brothers, was BtoB's first to top the Gaon Album Chart?

Beep Beep hit number one in the ninth week of 2014. The five-track EP closes with a ballad the group dedicated to its fans.

Which 2014 seasonal single was BtoB's first title track composed and produced by two of its own members?

The Winter's Tale was written by Im Hyun-sik and Jung Il-hoon. While promoting it, the group donated safety gloves to firefighters in South Jeolla Province.

Which 2016 spring single closed BtoB's trilogy of ballad title tracks, begun the previous summer?

Remember That fronted the group's eighth EP, released on the second night of an encore concert run that drew 14,000 fans to Jamsil Arena.

Which BtoB studio album followed the seven solo singles of the Piece of BtoB project in October 2017?

Brother Act. carried thirteen tracks, one of them only on the physical disc, with the members credited throughout as co-writers and co-composers.

Which studio album did BtoB release in February 2022 to mark the tenth anniversary of their debut?

Be Together beat the group's own first-week sales record, and its title track, composed by Im Hyun-sik, won trophies on two music shows in one week.

Which BtoB vocalist earned MAMA and Melon nominations for his 2024 cover of Can's Heavenly Fate?

Changsub recorded it as a soundtrack single for the webtoon A Not So Fairy Tale. A year earlier he had opened his own vocal academy in his home city of Suwon.

Under which stage name did BtoB's Lee Min-hyuk rap in the underground scene alongside Block B's Zico?

Huta stayed with him: his first Korean solo album and concert were both titled Hutazone. He was also MVP of the 2014 Idol Star Athletics Championships, with three golds.

When leader Seo Eun-kwang enlisted in 2018, how did BtoB pick Lee Min-hyuk as the stand-in leader?

A random draw during a live broadcast settled it. When he enlisted too, the job passed to youngest member Yook Sung-jae, as the group had agreed beforehand.

In 2020 leader Seo Eun-kwang became the first artist at BtoB's agency to take which corporate role?

Board director was his new title, revealed in the company's half-year report. He gave up the seat when the group left the agency in 2023.

Yook Sung-jae of BtoB had his acting breakthrough opposite Kim So-hyun and Nam Joo-hyuk in which KBS drama?

Who Are You: School 2015 brought him a Best Couple award with Kim So-hyun and a run of endorsement deals. He also sang a duet on its soundtrack.

Yook Sung-jae of BtoB left which reality show in 2020, after two years in the cast, to begin military service?

Master in the House had been his regular show since it launched at the end of 2017. He went on to serve in a Ministry of National Defense military band.

Leader Seo Eun-kwang of BtoB made his musical theatre debut in 2013 as Albert in which stage show?

Monte Cristo began a stage career that later took in Hamlet and Three Musketeers. His sudden enlistment in 2018 cut his run in a Barnum musical to six shows.

BtoB composer Im Hyun-sik is the son of Im Ji-hoon, a singer known for which style of music?

Folk is his father's field, and the two have shared a stage on KBS's Open Concert and at one of the son's sold-out solo shows in Seoul.

Which 2019 EP was Im Hyun-sik's first solo album, with every track written and arranged by the BtoB singer?

Rendez-vous came seven years after his debut, and the two solo concerts that followed it sold out in four minutes.

In November 2021 Lee Min-hyuk became host of which nightly KBS Cool FM programme branded with BtoB's name?

Kiss the Radio brought the whole group together on air later that month, their first appearance as a full line-up in three years.

Which song, whose Korean title means 'Secret', did BtoB perform as a debut title track in March 2012?

Insane was first performed at a Seoul showcase streamed on YouTube, and it returned in an acoustic version on the group's first studio album three years later.

Which ballad, produced by Black Eyed Pilseung, was the 2016 debut single of the vocal sub-unit BtoB Blue?

Stand By Me came with a video that one of the group's rappers helped to make, and it went straight to number one on the Monkey3 chart.

Which moombahton track, composed by Im Hyun-sik before he enlisted, was the debut single of BtoB 4U?

Show Your Love brought the four-man unit its first music show win, on The Show, just eight days after its debut in November 2020.

BtoB competed as a quartet in the 2021 Mnet contest Kingdom: Legendary War, which was won by which group?

Stray Kids took first place in the live finale in June 2021. BtoB entered with only four members because the others were away on military service.

After leaving their first agency in 2023, BtoB set up a sub-label for group activities under which company?

DOD Entertainment houses the sub-label, which also manages solo work for four of the members. The other two signed elsewhere for solo projects but stayed in the group.

Lee Min-woo, cut from BtoB's line-up before debut over health problems, later debuted as T.K. in which group?

C-Clown gave him his debut under a different label. He had already appeared on television with the future BtoB members, in a sitcom about an aspiring boy band.

Before their debut, several BtoB members played an aspiring boy band in which JTBC sitcom that began in 2011?

I Live in Cheongdam-dong also gave a first airing to a song that later landed on the Asia edition of the group's first EP.

BtoB's switch to ballads earned the Best Vocal Group prize in 2016 at which annual Korean music ceremony?

The Golden Disc Awards honoured the group at their 30th ceremony. The same awards season brought a Ballad Award from the Seoul Music Awards.

Which 2016 Japanese single gave BtoB a debut at number one on the weekly Oricon chart?

L.U.V sold more than 77,000 copies in its first week and also topped Billboard Japan's Hot 100. The group's first original Japanese single had stalled at number two.

BtoB were ambassadors for a 2022 exhibition at Boryeong's Daecheon Beach devoted to which natural material?

Sea mud was the theme of the 2022 Boryeong Sea Mud Exhibition, which ran for a month on the beach from the middle of July.