A seven-member South Korean boy band named BTS has contributed close to $50 billion to South Korea’s economy across the first decade of its existence, a share of the country’s GDP comparable to that of a major Korean airline — and the small Korean entertainment label that signed them in 2013 nearly went bankrupt before their debut

Big Hit Entertainment, in 2013, was not the kind of company that produced globally dominant music acts. It had been founded in 2005 by a 33-year-old former JYP Entertainment songwriter named Bang Si-hyuk — generally known in the Korean music industry by the nickname “Bang PD” — who had spent the previous decade working as [...] The post A seven-member South Korean boy band named BTS has contributed close to $50 billion to South Korea’s economy across the first decade of its existence, a share of