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With Show Me the Money coming back for a 10th season, let’s dive in the past seasons’ winners careers and see what they are up to now.
SHOW ME THE MONEY 1 : LOCO
In 2012, on the first ever season of Show Me the Money, Loco managed to secure his spot as the number one rapper of the competition with the mentorship of Double K (who is now better known as Illson). He later joined the label AOMG before releasing his first ever hit single “Hold Me Tight” featuring Crush on his ‘Locomotive’ EP in 2014. He then proceeded to join the VV:D crew with Crush, Zion.T, Gray and ELO where all the members collaborated on projects together. 2016 marked a real evolution in Loco’s career, as he joined Show Me the Money’s fourth season, but this time as a producer. Throughout his career, Loco has released many collaborations with the VV:D crew, Hwasa from Mamamoo, DEAN, Simon Dominic, IU and many more. With his prolific career, Loco managed to win awards such as the Best OST Award in 2015, the Hot Trend Award in 2018 and the Hot Issue Entertainer Award the same year. Eventually, Loco had to join the military in 2017 but not before releasing his first ever album titled ‘BLEACHED’. After coming back from the military in 2020, he dropped his EP ‘SOME TIME’ with the popular single “Can’t Sleep” in collaboration with IU.
SHOW ME THE MONEY 2: SOUL DIVE
The second season of Show Me the Money marked the first and only season where a crew of rappers won the winning title. The rappers Nuck, Zito and D.Theo who debuted in 2009 with the ‘Mad Scientist & Sweet Monsters’ album were taken under MC Meta’s wing as members of the Meta Crew. Following their victory, they released the EP ‘Sin’ in 2014, as well as a few projects in collaboration with the actor So Ji-sub. The crew then went off the radar, that is until Show Me the Money season 8, where Nuck was seen auditioning to join the show before being eliminated in the first episode.
SHOW ME THE MONEY 3 : BOBBY
In 2014, BOBBY who was already signed to the YG company since 2011, joined Team Illionaire in his battle for the winning title. He finished on top of the competition with the help of his mentors Dok2 and The Quiett, before appearing on the survival show Mix & Match. The concept of the show was to select the members of iKon, YG’s next debuting group. BOBBY made the cut and went on to debut with the group in 2015 with the album ‘Welcome Back’. He participated on Epik High’s notorious track “Born Hater” and joined the MOBB unit with his labelmate Mino. 2016 marked his first solo artist endeavors, releasing his first solo track “HOLUP”, as well as his first solo album ‘Love and Fall’, which secured a spot as number two on the Billboard World Album Charts. His second solo album ‘Lucky Man’ was released in 2021.
SHOW ME THE MONEY 4 : BASICK
Before winning Show Me the Money season 4, Basick was part of Korea’s underground hip hop scene where he first appeared circa 2007. He was recruited as a member of the Jiggy Fellaz crew in 2008 before forming the duo Double Trouble with Innovator, who was also part of the Jiggy Fellaz crew. He released the album ‘Classik’ in 2011 and ‘Foundation vol. 3’ in 2013 before halting his career for a few years. Basick then joined the fourth season of Show Me the Money in 2015 as a member Team Brand New with San E and Verbal Jint. After the show, he released the album ‘Nice’ in 2016, including a feature with Mamamoo, whom he had performed with on Show Me the Money, and ‘Foundation vol. 4’ in 2018. He joined All Right Music under the Rainbow Bridge World label and released the song “All Right” with his labelmates. In 2019, he created his own label OUTLIVE under which he released the album ‘whatiwant’ on which he shares a track with The Quiett, as well as the EP ‘Soft’ with the participation of Layone, The Deep, BRWN and more. In 2020, he released many singles in addition to a cypher with some fellow Show Me the Money participants. Basick is now mainly known for his Youtube rap and entertainment channel called “Basick TV” where he now counts as many as 243K subscribers.
SHOW ME THE MONEY 5 : BEWHY
Having won many awards like 2016’s MAMA Awards for ‘Puzzle’, 2016’s Top 10 Artists at the Melon Music Awards, 2017’s Hip-Hop Discovery of the Year at the Gaon Chart Music Awards and Best Rap & Hip-Hop Song with “Forever” at the Korean Music Awards in 2017, BeWhy’s reputation precedes him as one of the well-respected rappers in the industry. Known for his deep and devout lyrics, his unique style helped him surpass everyone on Show Me the Money 5 in 2016 with the aid of Gray and Simon Dominic as producers. BeWhy was no stranger to the Show, having participated on some of the previous seasons and even came back as a judge on the eighth season. Having started as a member of the $exy $treet & Yello Music crew, he went on to pursue a solo music career with the albums ‘Time Travel’ in 2015, ‘The Blind Star’ in 2017, ‘The Movie Star’ in 2019, as well as ‘Neo Christian’ in collaboration with Simba Zawadi in 2020. Recently, BeWhy has announced he will enlist for his military service on August 28 2021 in the Marine.
SHOW ME THE MONEY 6 : HANGZOO
2017 marked Rhythm Power’s Hangzoo’s win on the sixth season of Show Me the Money, listing Dean and Zico as his producers on the team FANXYCHILD. This was not Hangzoo’s first time on the show, as he had participated on the fourth season too. The rapper also appeared on High School Rapper 2 and 3, but this time as a judge alongside his crewmate Boi B. Rhythm Power, formed of Hangzoo, Boi B and Geegoin, was signed under Amoeba Culture, before leaving the label to create their own label TEAMPLAY MUSIC in 2020 and subsequently releasing their EP ASSBRASS in 2021. Prior to this EP, they had put out the EPs ‘Every Single One is Handsome, Rhythm Power’ in 2012 and ‘Wolmido Dogs’ in 2014. As a solo artist, Hangzoo put out the EP ‘Best Driver’ in 2015, as well as many singles since then. He also appeared on the hit track 119 Remix in 2018 before dropping another album called Project A in 2019, with featurings like SOLE and GIRIBOY.
SHOW ME THE MONEY : NAFLA
Show Me the Money’s seventh season was Nafla’s time to woo everyone under Swings and GIRIBOY’s wing in Team Just Music. Prior to the show, Nafla had already founded the Korean-American label MK IT RAIN with Loopy in 2016. The member of Young Creation and 42Crew first released a mixtape called ‘Platonixtape’ in 2012 before dropping another one called This & That in 2015. The last one amassed great success, winning the Best Mixtape Performance of the Year and Best Mixtape of the Year at the HipHopLE Mixtape Awards in 2015 and Rookie of the Year at the 2016 Gallery Awards. He went on to release the album ‘new blood’ in 2016 and Angels in 2017. In addition to these solo albums, he dropped the collaborative album ‘Public Enemy’ with his labelmates under the MK IT RAIN label in 2018 and another one with Loopy in 2019 called ‘Loofla’. Nafla and Loopy had promised that they would release a collaborative album were they to win first and second place on Show Me the Money and honoured their promise when it happened. Over the years, Nafla has collected collaborations with artists such as Dynamic Duo, Babylon, Bloo, Owen, CODE KUNST, pH-1 and many more. Unfortunately, he left the MK IT RAIN label in 2020 amidst a marijuana scandal and has stayed low profile since then, that is until this week, as Nafla uploaded the track « June » on Soundcloud to everyone’s surprise.
SHOW ME THE MONEY 8 : PUNCHNELLO
Famous in the hiphop community for his 2015 mixtape ‘#ROTPOTA’ which awarded him many titles such as Best Mixtape, Best Artwork and Best Collaboration Song at the 2015 HipHopLE Awards, Best Mixtape of the Year at the 2015 Mixtape Awards and Best Mixtape Song of the Year for the mixtape’s song “Hunting Season”, Punchnello proved himself yet again by winning the eighth season of Show Me the Money. Before his win, Punchnello had already participated on Show Me the Money season 6 and High School Rapper 3. In 2016, he released his EP ‘LIME’, following with the EP ‘ordinary.’ in 2019. The same year, shortly after Show Me the Money, Punchnello signed with AOMG. He went on to release many singles and collaborations, appearing on Yugyeom’s “Love the Way” with Jay Park before finally dropping his latest album ‘Demon Youth’ on July 12, 2021.
SHOW ME THE MONEY 9 : LILBOI
The last season of Show Me the Money was marked by LILBOI’s victory over his competitors. LILBOI found success with the album ‘Officially Missing You’ in 2011 as a member of the duo Geeks founded in 2011 with Louie. In their first year as a duo, they won the Rookie of the Month title in May for the Cyworld Digital Music Awards. They went on to release the albums ‘2nd Mini Album Repackage’ in 2012, ‘Backpack’ in 2013 and ‘Fireworks’ in 2017. His win on Show Me the Money 9 after appearing on the fourth season symbolized a great victory for his personal life, as well as his career, challenging the depression that came after Deepflow’s track dissing him in 2015. On the show, he got close to Wonstein with whom he released the songs “FRIENDS” and “LASER” in 2021. LILBOI released his solo album ‘Good Time for the Team’ in 2019, as well as many singles, the latest one being “Heat”, in collaboration with Wonstein and Mirani.
Looking back on these impressive careers, we cannot wait to see what gem will come out of Show Me the Money 10 in fall 2021!
Juliette Garcia