• Choi Young-jae is a singer from the K-Pop music band “GOT7”
• He has been songwriting and composing for GOT7 since 2016 and has collaborated with other artists including Elliott Yamin and Sanjoy
• He has won several awards including SBS MTV Best Of the Best award and SBS PopAsia Awards
• He enjoys video and computer games and playing the piano, and his favorite color is red
• As of 2020, his net worth is estimated to be around $36 million
Contents
Choi Young-jae is one of the singers from the K-Pop music band “GOT7”, mostly known under his nicknames Ars or Youngjae. He is a strong vocalist, skilled dancer and performer.
Early life and family
Choi Young-jaewas born on 17 September 1996, in Mokpo South Korea, so holds Korean nationality and is zodiac sign is Virgo. Youngjae is the youngest child of his parents, who lived their whole life in Mokpo; he has an older brother and an older sister, whose names are still unknown.
Educational background
Youngjae attended Muntae Middle School, and then went to Seoul’s Korean Arts High School.
After his matriculation in February 2015, Youngjae enrolled at Seokyeong University, in the Department of Theater and Film, however, due to schedule issues, he had to transfer to Daekyeung University, to the Modeling Department.
Career
Getting to GOT7
Youngjae once shared that when he was younger, he wanted to become a music therapist. Before joining his music band GOT7, he sang in a duo with his older brother and greatly enjoyed it. In 2013 he attended the closed audition of JYP (Jin-Young Park) Entertainment record company, one of the biggest in South Korea, and passed to become a trainee, so moving to Seoul.
He was meant to become the member of the a boy band, but after seven months of training he eventually joined GOT7 as the front vocalist; the band released the single “Girls Girls Girls” on 16 January 2014, included on their EP “Got It?” which was released four days later, and becoming runner-up in Gaon Music Chart, the principle music chart in South Korea.
Singing in GOT7, solo career as Ars
Youngjae has built an impressive singing career while performing with GOT7. The band has released 14 EPs since 2014, including “Got Love” (2014), “Flight Log: Arrival” (2017) and “I Won’t Let You Go” (2018). In 2016 when GOT7 released their fifth EP “Flight Log: Departure”, Youngjae started recording the songs he wrote and composed himself.
As one of his favorite quotes he even used as his Twitter account background image, was ‘Ars Longa, Vita Brevis’ (Latin; said by Hippocrates, in English literally means ‘Art is long, life is short’), he used the word Ars as his nickname and created his own Soundcloud profile to upload his songs on it. His solo activities didn’t impact his singing with GOT7, and was even appreciated by his managers, as it was another way for him to develop and improve as a performer, composer/songwriter. Youngjae started working as a songwriter for GOT7 in the same year of 2016, co-creating such singles as “Rewind”, “In This Chest” and “Think About It”, and composed such songs as “Moon U”, “Hesitate” and “Nobody Knows”.
In 2017 Youngjae had a successful collaboration with Elliott Yamin and Sanjoy, as they recorded the single “Victim of Love”. In 2018 he participated in the social campaign directed ay suicide prevention; for this campaign, organized by the Life Insurance Social Responsibility Foundation, Youngjae recorded the single “I’m All Ears”, featuring Park Ji-min, along with which the music video was released on 15 October 2018.
Latest activities
2019 was a very fruitful year for Youngjae as well as for GOT7 – they released two EPs, “Love Loop” (July – Japan) and “Call My Name” (November – South Korea). Youngjae wrote two singles for these EPs himself: “Time Out” and “Memorandum”. He also co-wrote and performed the song “At the Usual Time”, which was included to the soundtrack of the popular Korean sitcom “Wok of Love” in 2018.
Filmography and radio presenting
In 2015 Youngjae appeared in the Korean-Chinese online drama entitled “Dream Knight”, produced by Youku Tudou and JYE Entertainment. He also participated in such TV singing competitions as “King of Mask Singer” (2017), and “Immortal Songs: Singing the Legend” (2018). Youngjae has been invited as a guest onto several radio program since 2015, among them “Kiss The Radio” (KBS Cool FM) and “FM Starry Night” (MBC Standard FM).
Awards
Youngjae has won many awards, and with GOT7 – in 2014 he won SBS MTV Best Of the Best award in the category “Best New Artist” and SBS PopAsia Awards as “Best Rookie Group”. In 2015 GOT7 won Golden Disk Awards in two categories: “Best New Artist” and “China Goodwill Star Award”.
The same years they also won Fashion Power Awards: Asia Style as “Best Influence Group” and celebrated the victory at the Top Chinese Music Festival as Most Promising Newcomer Award (Overseas Category). YinYue V-Chart awarded the band Best Korean Newcomer (2015), while GOT7 also won Youku Night Awards in the category New Asian Group the same year.
Personal life
Youngjae has a contract with his agency and JYE Entertainment, agreeing that he couldn’t have any relationship while working with GOT7. According to the information available, Youngjae has never compromised his working reputation by breaking the rule, so he is not dating anyone at the moment.
Give me Youngjae's Solo album so I can die in peace ?@GOT7Official #GOT7 #ChoiYoungjae pic.twitter.com/Xea6Wd8Bod
— Silya 맠진 ?☾ (@MarkJin_Got77) March 13, 2020
Hobbies, favorite things and interesting facts
- Youngjae’s favorite hobby is video and computer games – his favorite game is “League of Legends”.
- He likes watching movies and cartoons; his favorite animation movie is “Frozen”.
- He plays the piano, along with some other keyboards instruments.
- His favorite singers are Elliott Yamin (in particular, his song “Wait For You”) and Javier, whom Youngjae also calls his role model; he also once shared he would love to have a mutual concert with Bruno Mars.
- Youngjae has a dog named Coco which he owns along with his band mate, Mark Tuan.
- He likes eating various food, but can’t stand cucumbers, watermelon and green tea flavored ice-cream – his favorite ice-cream flavor is strawberry; his favorite dish is ramen.
- His favorite color is red, as Youngjae thinks it brings good luck.
- He enjoys listening ballads and R&B music.
- He likes playing and watching soccer.
- His favorite perfume is by Mark Jacobs.
- Youngjae speaks Korean and Japanese fluently.
- He always takes his Buddhist rosary with him, as it is his mascot.
Youngjae calls himself a perfectionist and admits that it is quite hard sometimes to have such a character feature, as he works on his songs for a long period of time before he is fully satisfied with the result. He respects privacy, and doesn’t like it when someone disturbs him when he is relaxing or sleeping. He says that music heals him, and he feels the happiest when he is playing the piano or even just singing a song.
Appearance, clothing style
Youngjae has short hair which he likes dying in various colors, including blue, neon pink, yellow, black, and has hazel eyes. Youngjae is 5ft 10ins (1.78m) tall and weighs around 130lbs (59kgs).
He enjoys wearing comfortable and warm clothes, never choosing brand items over mass market ones. He adores using eyeliners and tinted lip balms. Youngjae has two tattoos: the one on his shoulder says ‘Ars Longa, Vita Brevis’, the other one on his right ribs portrays a yellow ribbon – the symbol of so-called 419 Revolution Day, which was the day of 19 April 1960 when the people of South Korea overthrew the dictatorship in their country with pro-democracy protests. Youngjae respects the memory of the people who died or suffered during the protests.
Net worth and salary
As of 2020, Youngjae’s net worth is estimated to be around the impressive figure of $36 million. He is successfully developing his singing career along with his songwriting and composing endeavors.
