Mino is the stage name of Song Min-ho (March 30, 1993), a South Korean rapper that rose to fame in 2014 as the lead MC of the boy band Winner. Born in the city of Yongin in the Gyeonggi Province, he began his career in the underground hip-hop scene alongside other rappers such as Zico, P.O, and Hanhae. After failing to reach an economic agreement with Stardom Entertainment over his involvement in the idol group Block B, Mino joined the ballad boy band BoM in 2011 under the stage name Tagoon. Following the group’s disbandment in 2013, he became a trainee for YG Entertainment and participated in the survival reality show WIN: Who Is Next, winning the competition as part of Team A and securing himself a spot in Winner’s lineup. With the group, Mino made his recording debut on the album 2014 S/S, which topped the Gaon charts upon its release and achieved nationwide recognition. In 2015, he finished runner-up on the fourth season of the rap survival series Show Me the Money, becoming one of the best-selling artists to ever appear on the program. His stint on the show spawned a total of four Top 10 hits: “Turtle Ship,” “Money Flow,” “Fear,” and “Okey Dokey.” Subsequently, Mino teamed up with iKon’s Bobby to form the hip-hop duo MOBB, whose studio debut The Mobb (2016) topped Billboard’s World Albums Chart, and cracked the South Korean Top 5 with his first full-length XX in 2018. Take, his sophomore effort saw the light two years later and peaked at Number 4 on the domestic albums chart. Preceded by the single “Tang!,” a third album titled To Infinity arrived in 2021 and placed third on the Gaon charts.
