Zack O'Malley Greenburg is senior editor of media & entertainment at Forbes and author of three books: Empire State of Mind: How Jay-Z Went From Street Corner To Corner Office; 3 Kings: Diddy, Dr. Dre, Jay-Z and Hip-Hop's Multibillion-Dollar Rise; and Michael Jackson, Inc: The Rise, Fall And Rebirth Of A Billion-Dollar Empire. In his day job at Forbes, Zack has investigated topics from Wu-Tang Clan's secret album in Morocco to the return of tourism in post-conflict Sierra Leone to the earning power of, writing cover stories on subjects ranging from to to in the process. In addition to Forbes, where he arrived in 2007 after graduating from Yale with an American Studies degree, his work has also appeared in,, and others. A recovering child actor, he played the title role in the film (1992).

Aug 19, 2016 - Happy 10th anniversary to K-pop boy band BIGBANG, here are their 10. Electropop songs were already BIGBANG's thing in 2011 by the time. Haru” (“Day By Day” in English) is the peak of BIGBANG's artistry to this day.

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As record executive Joojong Joe weaved through the packed crowd at the 19,000-capacity Honda Center in Anaheim, Calif., there to see Korean boy band, he spotted a young Russian woman crying. She couldn’t explain why. Confident that she wasn’t in any actual distress, he moved on. “It’s like the Backstreet Boys back in the day,” Joe says with a shrug. “A lot of people cry.” Even, it turns out, a Russian obsessed with five androgynous Korean boys. Read forbidden by tabitha suzuma. Such is the reach of the hottest global pop genre, the campy Korean variant known as K-Pop. The top act in its niche, Bigbang took home $44 million in pretax earnings over the past year, easily more than the $33.5 million collected by today’s highest-paid American all-male arena pop group,.

Bigbang landed the No. 54 spot on our, even topping such artist-entrepreneurs as (No. 63, $41 million) and (No. 66, $40.5 million), though that’s more attributable to the popularity of the group’s music than the depth of its members’ business savvy. Korea’s Pop Export: Bigbang is the first K-Pop act to land on our Celeb 100 list–and, together with YG, offers a blueprint for making money in the music business anywhere in the world. “We made more than Maroon 5?” says front man Kwon “G-Dragon” Jiyong, 27, through a translator.

“Did not know that. My mom is in charge of my earnings.” Fortunately the group’s finances are being guided by much more than a mommy manager. The real force behind Bigbang is former K-Pop idol Yang “YG” Hyun Suk and his namesake company–a $630 million publicly traded record label, talent agency and concert promoter with fingers in pies from fashion to marketing to film. The company and its founder are responsible for creating not only Bigbang but also, to a great extent, the modern K-Pop movement, which is in the midst of a transformation from regional staple to international craze. Within YG’s roster, examples abound. Girl group 2NE1 sells out arenas around the world and even did an Adidas commercial with Nicki Minaj, while the video for “Gangnam,” from pop-rapper Psy, holds the all-time YouTube record, with 2.6 billion views since its 2012 debut. That sort of virality wasn’t possible a decade ago, when K-Pop was available beyond Asia mostly via illegal download or at specialty record stores.