Lee Tae-yong

Lee Tae-yong (), professionally known by the mononym Taeyong, is a South Korean rapper, singer, dancer, and songwriter. He is best known as a member and leader of the boy group NCT. In 2016, he debuted in the group's first sub-unit, NCT U, and later that year went on to become the leader of the second sub-unit, NCT 127. As a songwriter, Taeyong has participated in writing over 30 songs in four languages, released mostly by NCT's various units. In 2019, he debuted as a member of the South Korean supergroup SuperM, which is produced by SM Entertainment in collaboration with Capitol Records. He also released his first solo single, "Long Flight", in 2019.
Career.
2012–2016: Pre-Debut.
Lee Taeyong was born on July 1, 1995 in Seoul, South Korea. He graduated from the School of Performing Arts Seoul. At the age of 18, he was scouted on the street by an SM Entertainment recruiter and joined the company after successfully passing the audition by singing the national anthem. He was introduced as a member of SM Rookies, a pre-debut idol training team, on December 2, 2013. Upon debut, he was assigned the roles of main rapper and main dancer, despite having no background in dance prior to his training and his dance coach expressing doubts whether he would be able to catch up. 
In 2014, a video of Taeyong performing a fragment of his song "Open the Door" was published on SMTown's YouTube channel. Later that year, Taeyong featured on Red Velvet's song "Be Natural". He was credited in both releases as "SR14B Taeyong".
2016-18: Debut with NCT, NCT U, NCT 127.
In April 2016, Taeyong debuted as a member of NCT U with the song "The 7th Sense", which was also the first release of NCT overall. In July of that year, he debuted as a member and leader of NCT 127 with their first EP "NCT #127", for which he co-wrote 2 songs, including the main single "Fire Truck".
In January 2017, NCT 127 returned with the EP "Limitless." Taeyong participated in writing four songs for the album, with the song "Baby Don't Like It" marking the first time he was credited as a composer. In June, the group released their third EP, "Cherry Bomb". All of the songs on the album, save one, were co-written by Taeyong. The title track, "Cherry Bomb", was later named as one of the best K-pop songs of the year by "Billboard" and "Idolator".
In 2017, Taeyong participated in two collaborations with fellow SM Entertainment artists. "Around", an experimental song produced by Hitchhiker, was released with an accompanying music video in May, through the SM Station project. Lee also worked with singer and producer Yoo Young-jin on the rock ballad "Cure", which was released in August 2017, also through SM Station.
Together with NCT 127's vocalists Taeil and Doyoung, Taeyong appeared on the OST for the drama "School 2017", featuring as rapper and songwriter for the R&B ballad "Stay in My Life".
In March 2018, NCT released their first full album as part of a large-scale project uniting all of its subgroups - "NCT 2018 Empathy". Taeyong appeared in five of the units featured on the album (NCT 127, NCT 2018, and three units of NCT U). He participated in writing five songs for "Empathy". He made his debut in Japan with NCT 127's EP "Chain" in May 2018. The album peaked at number two of the Oricon Weekly Albums chart.
That same month, Taeyong joined the cast of "Food Diary", a variety show following a group of celebrities exploring farming and the process of food production, together with labelmate BoA.
Taeyong co-wrote four songs for NCT 127's first full length album, "Regular-Irregular," including the promotional single "Regular""." The song was initially released in two languages: English and Korean, but later also served as the debut single of the Chinese sub-unit, WayV.
2019-present: Solo work, SuperM.
In April, NCT 127 released their first full-length Japanese album, "Awaken", for which Taeyong co-wrote the song "Lips".
In July 2019, Taeyong released his first solo song, "Long Flight", which he had written and co-composed, with an accompanying music video. The track served as the finale of Season 3 of the SM Station project. The song debuted at #6 on Billboard World Digital Song Sales chart.
On August 8, 2019, Taeyong was revealed as a member of SuperM, a K-pop supergroup created by SM Entertainment in collaboration with Capitol Records. The group's promotions began in October, and were aimed at the American market. The group released their first EP, "SuperM", for which Taeyong co-wrote the song "No Manners". The album debuted at #1 on Billboard 200 Album chart.
That same month, Taeyong and Punch collaborated on an OST song for "Hotel del Luna" , titled "Love del Luna", is the soundtrack's thirteenth (and final) part.
In November 2019, Taeyong featured on Marteen's "Mood".
In March 2020, NCT 127 released their second full album, "Neo Zone". Taeyong participated in co-writing three songs for the album. The album was commercially successful. It debuted at number five on the US "Billboard" 200 and together with the repackage, "Neo Zone: The Final Round", sold more than one million copies in South Korea.
In September 2020, SuperM released their first full length album, "Super One", for which Taeyong co-wrote the song "Together At Home". That same month, NCT's second large scale project uniting all of its subgroups, "NCT 2020: Resonance", was announced, and Taeyong was confirmed as the overall leader of the group.
On March 15 2021, Taeyong opened his own soundcloud account and released a new demo single Dark Clouds and Dark Clouds (Remix). Since then, he has released more demo singles such as GTA1, GTA2 and Blue.
Songwriting.
All credits are adapted from the Korea Music Copyright Association, unless stated otherwise.
See also.
List of awards and nominations received by NCT