Jang Ki-ha has steadily risen to fame since his 2008 debut with the group, and having mostly spent his time under a small agency, he’s only recently come into the spotlight with appearances on variety shows and the reveal of his relationship with solo superstar, IU. So who is he, exactly? What kind of group is Jang Kiha and The Faces? How did they rise to fame so spectacularly? What is he up to recently? Let’s take a closer look and get to know Jang Ki-ha!
Profile and Facts
Profile
Facts
He has a very big nose, especially his nostrils. When he was a child, he used to be called ‘White Pig’. This was due to his being fairly heavy before he served his mandatory military service. Before he served in the military, he used to have dreadlocks. In 2009, he won the Korean Pop Musician poll on Naver, winning against Taeyang with 39,455 votes. Subsequently, he was awarded ‘Best Music’, ‘Best Rock Artist’ and ‘The Netizen’s Choice’ awards during that year’s Korean Pop Music Awards. He was featured as a character on the webtoon ‘Along with The Gods’, written by Ju Mi-ho. He was picked by Wonder Girls’ former member, Sohee, as the musician she wants to work with the most. Jang Ki-ha is known for his hobby of collecting record plates with fellow member Hasegawa Yohei. He really likes to eat, he once even said that eating has become a hobby of his. As seen on his Instagram and Twitter accounts, he likes to upload pictures of food that he finds interesting and delicious. He’s a big fan of the British band Oasis, but only started liking their music after they disbanded. Some artists he would love to collaborate with are Blur, The Gorillaz, and Damon Albarn.
Reality Show Appearances
As mentioned before, although Jang Ki-ha debuted as an indie musician, recently he has taken a more active role appearing on hit variety shows. Check out some of his appearances below!
Running Man
One of his most memorable appearances is on Running Man‘s popularity race episode, in which contestants participated in an episode-long race where they have to win against the writers on several different missions. The name of the episode comes from the fact that the writers did a survey using a thousand women as the pool of data for today’s ranked popularity race, and were asked the following question: If you were born again, which man would you want to date the most? Not only that, some female celebrities also participated in the poll. Song Ji-hyo, the series regular, acts as the MC, leaving the six remaining male regulars and five guests, including Jang Ki-ha, as the main contestants of the show. The episode involved challenges where they had to work as a group but also as individuals, the first one being a team effort to match the number of feet on a reflexology mat with the number called out by the writers. Jang Ki-ha’s expertise, though, really shone in their second mission, in which they were asked to participate in a knowledge quiz. Jang Ki-ha offered to go first to solve an English question worth five points, as they need to strategize in order to get to 30 points, collectively. The English question was taken from an actual college entrance exam and required both listening comprehension and math skills. It seemed like they were in good hands, because Jang Ki-ha said he used to be a translator when he was in the army. To everyone’s amazement, he got it right and accurately explained how he arrived at the answer. Not only did he beat the English question, but he also answered the history question without breaking a sweat. This only goes to show that despite being an indie musician, people shouldn’t forget that he graduated from the notable Seoul National University.
It’s Dangerous Beyond the Blanket
Another variety show he took part in is It’s Dangerous Beyond The Blanket, which differs from his Running Man appearance because this time he was a series regular. The show works a little differently than most variety shows, since he doesn’t part take in every episode despite being a series regular. It’s a show about homebodies leaving their house to go on a trip with fellow homebody celebrities. Jang Ki-ha took part in several trips with other celebrities, such as series regular Kang Daniel and guests Junhoe and Jung Sewoon from IKON. It looked like they all got quite close, judging from the clips above and below.
With guests Junhoe and Jung Sewoon, he took a trip to Chuncheon where they spent time enjoying the sea breeze and wildlife. The three didn’t seem to know each other well before the show but quickly grew close due to their similar personalities. Jang Ki-ha, in particular, seemed to be pretty comfortable with Junhoe, asking if the other had eaten beforehand and progressing to Junhoe spilling some of his thoughts about his past clubbing scandal with Jang Ki-ha. With Kang Daniel, however, despite both being series regulars, they have only been on one trip together. The trip was to Jeju, and they were joined by other cast members such as Loco and Lee Yi-kyung. The four spent their time in Jeju by cooking, enjoying the local delicacies and doing self-care together.
