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So, a friend of mine who’s not a hardcore 2NE1 fan was watching the MV for Goodbye and she noticed that a lot of the comments in the video are about “who’s to blame for the disband”. She asked me about it and I wrote her a kinda long story that I decided to share here. This is all my point of view and I won’t source anything because that’s a lotta work and I’m on mobile.

Oh, for the reference: any mention of “YG” is the company. In the few times I refer to the man, I’ll call him “Yang”.

So, before 2NE1 debuted, Bom had lived in the US. There, she saw a psychiatrist (because reasons, I believe one of them was family related). Her psychiatrist prescribed her some psychiatric medicine, Adderall, which I can say, being a psychologist myself, is mostly harmless stuff, that helps you keep a stable humor and concentrate. I’ve been told people taking the SATs in the US take Adderall like candy.

However, in Korea, the sale of Adderall is forbidden, and one time when Bom came back from the US with it (around season 2 of 2NE1 TV, I think? 2010?), she was caught with it. As she had a medical prescription, she was released, no big deal. There was a bit of controversy there because she actually labeled the pills as “candy” while she had them in her luggage, but that’s for reasons that only Bom would know.

Skip 2014, 2NE1 releases the modern edition of the Gospels (AKA Crush), they’re successful, yada yada, someone decides to bring up the drug case again. It goes all over the Internet once again, Koreans say Bom should be convicted of smuggling, arrested, etc. Here, we have the first cause of disband: instead of coming out the public and defending her (“case’s closed, people, she wasn’t convicted, personal use drugs only, nothing to see here”), like they did with BIGBANG before (GD and marijuana, Daesung hitting someone with a car, these are the ones I remember), YG (remember, I’m talking about the company here) stayed silent and just pulled Bom out of sight. No more 2NE1 promotions, and she was even forbidden of using social media (!!!).

Late 2014/early 2015, we get to hear the future plans for the girls. Dara starts acting again, and CL is going to promote in the US! Presumably, if she does well, 2NE1 goes after her. Nice. Bom is still nowhere to be seen, and Minzy? Second cause of disband: YG’s awful artist management. In a so-called “year off”, they gave Minzy nothing to do. As she is arguably the most well-rounded member, she wanted to do stuff (she even released some small audio clips on Instagram, I remember, and on SoundCloud too, I’ve been told. Girl had fucking taken up composing!) But they left her to rot.

2015 passes by, and the only thing we hear from CL is Hello Bitches (pretty rad song, btw). But we kinda expected more, because if her American album is taking that long, the next 2NE1 album will take even longer, right? But why is it taking so long? At the time, my memory tells me, Scooter Braun (CL’s American manager/producer) said he was ready to launch her. YG said, “nope, not yet”. Cause of disband number 3: same as number 2, just repeated for emphasis.

MAMA 2015 comes and we get the lovely surprise of CL performing… And summoning 2NE1 literally out of the ground. Fans went crazy (myself included), because that was the clear sign that we’d have them back soon. Little did we know that would be the last time we saw them together live.

Enter 2016. Nothing about CL’s album, nothing about Bom, nothing about Minzy, Dara’s being Dara on variety and dramas (I mean no irony here: Dara is my ultimate bias in kpop, which means that I melt on her every word and smile). April comes. We get the bad news. Minzy didn’t re-sign with YG. 2NE1 is a trio now. Cue desperation of fans (myself included). No one knows why. When May comes, the contact officially expires, Minzy immediately signs with MusicWorks. And here’s the interesting part: in the only time she mentioned 2NE1 up until January 2017, she just said she didn’t want to be associated with them anymore. She even said her stage name is to be “Gong Minji”. She unfollowed her previous group mates on social media (though she followed Dara back quickly). Cue to fans attacking her and leaving “treacherous snake” emojis on her Instagram. Minzy’s behavior is justified, though. It made sense this week only.

To contain fan disappointment, YG says there’ll be a 2NE1 summer album in 2016. But see, summer was about a month away from then. Was it really possible? Summer came. We got BLACKPINK. Summer passed. We got BLACKPINK again. Reason number 4 for disband: BLACKPINK. Before Blinks accuse me of being divisive, let me say that this one I’ll leave on Yang’s shoulders mostly. If you watched 2NE1 TV, you know he was always onto 2NE1’s looks. OT4 was badass, fierce, talented, charismatic on stage, record breakers, but they never were pretty enough. And close to BLACKPINK’s debut, Yang said that he wanted a girl group with all that power and stuff, but also that they were cute. Now he had it. BLACKPINK had a quite successful debut, and even better comeback if I’m not wrong. 2NE1 wasn’t needed. And because of things we learned in this past week, it became rather obvious that they waited to see BLACKPINK’s results before deciding whether 2NE1 would have that album or not. See, I don’t blame BLACKPINK here, it’s not the kids’ fault at all: it’s the fact that the company needed/wanted them to replace 2NE1.

Oh, yeah, amongst all that shitstorm, Bom came back to social media! That was taken by the fans as a good sign, because even if that album didn’t come, it meant she was out of the dungeon, right? Well… It could have, if by the end of the year, we hadn’t been hit by the news of the disband. Simply like that, not many explanations given. Oh, yeah, and Bom? She had never re-signed. That’s why she can post again, you gullible blackjacks you. Again, fans half enraged half dismayed, everyone was asking “what about that album?” CL and Dara didn’t know. They weren’t told. Like us, both of them heard of it through the news. Dara, in her usual caring manner (excuse my bias), wrote us messages and letters saying they were just as stunned.

2017, early days, news come out of the blue: 2NE1 is gonna release a farewell song. But wait, hadn’t they disbanded? How does that work? Will it be OT4? Again, short news, no explanation. I think it was about two days later when we heard it was going to be a CL composition. Prompt to CL haters accusing YG (mostly CL herself) of rehashing scraps of the now fabled American album. But it wasn’t like that, we also learned this week.

Comes the week of the release, and that’s when we got the waterfall of news and bits of information that (kinda) completed the puzzle. Dara apologizes again, saying the album had been worked on, but that this song would be the only thing we’d get. On Minzy’s birthday, the 18th, both CL and Dara post “happy birthdays” without a name, leading fans to believe they were forbidden from contacting Minzy. Minzy herself says she had never been told about any news songs, in the first time she mentions 2NE1 in months. She also wishes all of her unnies well, which at least for me, shows that she figured what had happened as well. YG finally releases a shoddy statement about the disband saying that “they cared about Bom’s mental health, that’s why she didn’t re-sign, and the group was disbanded”. Fans inquire Bom on Twitter. She says she’s fine, and that she wants to sing, but she shows no anger towards YG or Yang himself (she even posted pieces of an old diary showing how much she admires Yang. And if you’ve been a fan for at least a while, you know Bom isn’t prone to sarcasm, so I take that admiration as real). The song comes out. It’s beautiful, it’s touching, it’s unfortunate OT3 and… It’s mostly in Korean. See kiddos, it wasn’t a fucking rehash from CL’s album. CL comes up and says it was written for Minzy, and changed a bit for the blackjacks in general. She also corrects Dara’s previous statement a bit - the album hadn’t been made, because they hadn’t recorded the vocals, but everything else was there (I figure she meant a tracklist, lyrics, and musical arrangement).

And this is where it all comes together. When their contract was about to expire, YG meant to give them an album, but only if BLACKPINK flopped - and they weren’t told about that. Tired of waiting, Minzy signed somewhere else, and because of the backlash, YG came out in public with news of the album. Minzy was likely furious at CL for re-signing, given that CL’s American album was theoretically the thing holding 2NE1 back (that’s what YG said for the whole of 2015). Minzy was also furious at Bom because Bom wanted to stay in YG despite everything, but she had no reason to be mad at Dara (Dara’s variety appearances wouldn’t stop group promotions, if they happened), and that’s likely why she followed Dara back. CL was obviously hurt - remember, CL is “the baddest female”, but Chaerin is a sweetheart and wrote Minzy a song - Goodbye - to include in the album now that they had one in the horizon. However, the vocals were not recorded because YG hadn’t offered Bom a re-sign - they were waiting to see BLACKPINK’s results first. In the end, the album was scrapped, the last song was recorded (on CL’s insistence, I believe) with Bom as a guest (not as an artist of YG, but she could be part of it because she isn’t signed anywhere), but they didn’t call Minzy because she’s in another company and CL and Dara were likely forbidden under contract to contact Minzy (much like Bom was forbidden from using social media for two years, or like some idols are forbidden to have romantic relationships).

Some parts are obviously open for questioning, but that’s how it all fits to me. In short, a great example of terrible management ruining a fantastic thing. It wasn’t Bom’s fault, it was the company’s response to her scandal. It wasn’t CL’s fault, it was the company’s management of her American album. It wasn’t Minzy’s fault, it was the company’s management of her career and potential. It wasn’t BLACKPINK’s fault, but the company’s expectations on them as a replacement of 2NE1. In one thing, I suppose all blackjacks (and blinks too) probably agree: 2NE1 DESERVED BETTER.

My favorite group, 2NE1, disbanded. They said goodbye to us fans with a beautiful final song, and so I thought it would be just about right to say goodbye to them too somehow…

It’s not much, they’ll probably never see it, but still.

“…on orders over $100”