KQ 101

A commenter asked me to do a post on the relationship between KQ Entertainment and Seven Seasons, and I was like, I did that three years ago, plus I’m really busy right now and don’t have access to my good computer.

Then I went on Twitter, and saw, like, three different Tweets on the subject that were all inaccurate.

Sigh…. Hey kids! Do you want to learn all about KQ and Seven Seasons? I can’t wait to post about it! I’m sure people won’t ignore facts in favor of drama, and I certainly don’t have anything else to do with my time!

Anyway. The important thing to know about KQ/Seven Seasons is who this guy is:

That is KQ. And he’s standing right next to a Seven Seasons sign! This isn’t going to be so hard, is it?

KQ = Kim Kyu Wook. That’s that guy in the bad suit up there, and the slightly nicer suit down here:

See? It used to say “Seven Seasons,” but now it says “KQ.” Always the same guy, though.

So, what happened? Block B met Kim when they were at their original, truly horrible (like, their boss was convicted of fraud) label, and once they won their freedom from it, Kim took over their management.

To manage them, Kim created a company, Seven Seasons. So the relevant corporate structure looked like this:

SEVEN SEASONS

Simple enough, right? That was in 2013. Three years later, Block B was doing super well, and Zico and Park Kyung had both successfully launched solo careers as well.

At that point, Kim decided that he wanted to manage other talent as well (and it’s implied in that profile of him that he was managing at least one other artist all along).

Kim’s first choice of talent? Babylon! Who recruited Babylon for him? Zico!

But there was a hitch: Kim couldn’t manage other talent under Seven Seasons. Fans will insist that this is because they were promised that Seven Seasons would only ever represent Block B, and that Kim is a scumbag who weaseled his way around that promise, because it was a promise and a promise is legally binding because it’s a promise and we’re all three years old and entitled as fuck. (This, by the way, is why Block B is never mentioned on KQ’s social media accounts–whiny fans then didn’t want KQ to use Block B to support another group and pitched enormous fucking fits about it. Now Ateez has taken off, and whiny fans want to know why KQ doesn’t use it to support Block B. ETA: When people say that the first people to support Ateez were BBCs, they are being quite selective with their memories—or they just weren’t around in 2016. There were HIGHLY vocal BBCs who were extremely opposed to KQ doing another group, and they regularly went ballistic whenever a tryout was announced.)

I personally think that there is some kind of contractual obligation that Seven Seasons can only represent Block B, because Block B’s previous, horrible label stupidly managed to get into actual legal trouble for spending money specifically earmarked for it on other groups. But it may as well just been PR, I don’t know.

In any case, a corporate restructuring was in order. Because I am a dweeb, I will note that this was a restructuring and not a merger–at least not a merger of two companies with separate ownership. The situation started out with this guy:

And he’s still The Guy (although I hope he’s burned That Suit).

How did the corporate structure change? Well, we started out with:

SEVEN SEASONS

And the first thing that happened was that the name changed.

SEVEN SEASONS KQ ENTERTAINMENT

(This name change, by the way, is why KQ Entertainment “took over” the Seven Seasons social media accounts. The company changed its name. The fact that none of the fans who are so concerned about this supposedly horrible “takeover” understand that simple fact, nor do they seem to know that those accounts were corporate news and were never particularly focused on Block B, should tell you exactly how well-informed they are.)

Then Seven Seasons was reformed as a subsidiary, and a couple of more subsidiaries were added. (ETA: I’m going to note here that I’m not using the term “subsidiary” in any technical sense–it could be a division, I don’t know. Private companies!)

SEVEN SEASONS KQ ENTERTAINMENT

Seven Seasons    Next Level    KQ Produce

That was the structure in 2016. It is now 2019, and if you look at the KQ Web site, this nice little umbrella structure is a little more complicated:

KQ ENTERTAINMENT

Seven Seasons                                 KQ Produce

KQ Ent.          KQ PD

So, now KQ Produce has its own subsidiaries, maybe–or maybe that’s just how they organized the Web site. As you might expect when it’s a private company run by one dude:

the structure can be kind of fluid–hey, when you are KQ, KQ Entertainment does what you need it to do at the moment. The only thing that seems to stay discrete within KQ is Seven Seasons, which I’m going to take as further evidence for my “contractual obligation” narrative, because confirmation bias.

So, am I saying that Kim runs KQ Entertainment all by himself?

Sort of? I mean, a big part of his business plan is to let the artists do what they want, so many of the artists have a lot of autonomy (and the financial responsibility that comes with it). Sony Music is an investor and part owner (although we don’t know the exact nature of their ownership share), and I think it’s highly likely that there are and have been other investors or part owners as well.

So I don’t think KQ Entertainment is a one-man show, but I do think it’s reasonable to assume that the guy who built the company and named it after himself probably has the most power there.

Anyway, that’s the (boring corporate) saga of KQ and Seven Seasons. TL;DR: They have never been separate companies, and one basically grew out of the other.