KARD is a south korean co-ed k-pop group formed by dsp media and consists of four members: j.seph, bm, somin and jiwoo. they're known for their unique sound, blending tropical house, reggae, and hip-hop elements in their music.

matthew kim, known by his stage name bm or big matthew, was born in los angeles on october20th, 1992. he moved to korea in 2011 to pursue a career in music by auditioning for the first season of k-pop star. he made it into the top 50, but got eliminated.

while on the show, he was told by jyp and yg that he was too old to debut and that he should give up. the only one who believed in him was boa, who he later thanked for choosing him.

afterwards, he signed for dsp media. initially training to debut as a hip-hop duo with j.seph, bm talked about wanting to quit and paying back his debt but the then ceo of dsp convinced him to stay.

later in his first solo single 13ivi he references having a dream in 2013 where god told him to read dan 2:19, which his friend interpreted as a sign that he would be king. three years later, he debuted as the king card in KARD.

jeon somin was born august 22nd, 1996 in seoul. she first debuted in 2012 with dsp's japanese girl group puretty which sadly disbanded in 2014 without making their korean debut.

in 2014 somin then participated in KARA project, a show which was aimed to find new members for the girl group KARA. somin finished the show in third place, thus not making it into the group.

in 2015 she debuted as the leader of dsp's new girl group APRIL. somin left the group only a few months later, citing creative differences. afterwards, she started training to debut with KARD in a more mature concept.

kim taehyung, known by his stage name j.seph, was born june 21st, 1992 in chungcheongbuk-do. ever since he was young, dreamed of being a singer and had trained for 5 years at dsp media before debuting with KARD.

not having anyone to look up to from his hometown for a singing career, he initially took an exam to be a soldier. still, he moved to seoul and lived in a goshiwon, passing his audition without telling his parents.

j.seph quietly enlisted for his mandatory military service on october 5th, 2020 as an active duty soldier and was discharged on April 4th, 2022.

while in the military, j.seph joined the cast of the musical meissa's song with EXO's chanyeol, infinite's kim myungsoo and B.A.P's daehyun.

jeon jiwoo was born on october 4th, 1996 in seoul. she became interested in music at a very early age and started practicing singing. she also studied the clarinet. she attended chungdam high school with twice's jihyo and was scouted.

she had previously trained for five years under fnc entertainment, as well as yg entertainment. she trained under dsp for only two months before debuting with KARD, and decided to debute because of how much she loved oh nana.

before making their official debut with hola hola on july 19th, 2017, they released three pre-debut tracks to amazing success: oh nana, don't recall and rumor.

billboard selected KARD as one of the top 5 k-pop artists to watch in 2017. the group held their first sold-out world tour in 2017 before even officially debuting as a group.

so far in their career, KARD have places three of their albums on the billboard charts: 1st mini album hola hola, 2nd mini album you & me and their 3rd mini album ride on the wind.

they also entered a total of fifteen songs on the billboard world digital songs sales chart throughout their career, with rumor being the most successful at 12 weeks on the chart. they peaked at #3 with rumor, bomb bomb and dumb litty.

they're the first co-ed and 3rd gen k-pop group to enter and top billboard's next big sound chart as well as the first k-pop artist to top the chart for two consecutive weeks and the ONLY artist to have spent 28 weeks on the chart.

their most recent comeback was with their 6th mini album icky, and they are currently preparing a comeback for the summer.

their self-produced and self-written b-side cake has become their most successful b-side to date and marks a turning point for the group into cementing a mature sound and concept.

although a relatively small group by sales numbers, KARD are deeply respected and admired by their peers in the industry with many showing their love and support throughout the years.

KARD have renewed their contract with dsp media in advance and have thus broken the seven year curse and have joined the elite line-up of only ten groups in history to have renewed their contracts with the complete line-up. their contract runs until december 2026.

they went through different hardships, being part of a small company, the only active co-ed idol group, going through financial difficulties. still they remained hardworking and continued giving it their all. stan kard, the group that never gave up.