Peggy Gou

Peggy Gou was born Kim Min-ji,[2] in Incheon, South Korea, on July 3, 1991.[3] She began classical piano lessons at age 8.[4] At age 14, her parents sent her to London, England to study English. She moved back to Korea when she was 18 years old, but six months later she returned to London to study fashion at the London College of Fashion. After graduating, she worked as the London correspondent editor for Harper's Bazaar Korea, and then moved to Berlin, Germany.[5][6]

Gou was taught to DJ in 2009 by her friend from Korea. She had her first gig in Cirque Le Soir, Soho, and later performed weekly at The Book Club, East London.[7] In 2013, she learned to use Ableton and began to create her own tracks. Her first track, Hungboo, was completed in 2014.[5] Hungboo was named for the hero of a Korean fairy tale. She played the track in Korea for the first time at the 2016 Style Icon Awards opening show, featuring award-winning actor Yoo Ah-in in a visual art video.[8][9]

Gou made her recording debut in January 2016 on Radio Slave's Rekids label with The Art of War Part 1, featuring a remix from Galcher Lustwerk.[10] She next released four EPs[11] including Seek for Maktoop, with hit track It Makes You Forget (Itgehane).[12] Maktoop was named after the Arabic word "maktoob", the equivalent to "written" or "destiny".[13] This was followed by EPs Once and Han Jan in 2018, and Moment in April 2019.[14] Once is the first time she has sung on a record.[15]

Peggy Gou performing at Primavera Sound 2019.

Gou embarked on her first North American tour and made a Boiler Room debut in NYC in 2017.[16] She became the first Korean DJ to play in Berlin's most exclusive nightclub Berghain.[17] She plays more than one hundred live gigs in a year and has performed alongside the likes of Moodymann, The Black Madonna and DJ Koze. She has since had gigs in the worldwide festival sets at Coachella, Glastonbury, Sonus in Croatia, Amsterdam’s Dekmantel, London’s Printworks, Ibiza, Amsterdam Dance Event, Primavera Sound in Portugal, Barcelona's Sónar, as well as Virgil Abloh's Off-White fashion show among others.[18][6][19]

In 2018, Gou released her music on record labels Ninja Tune and Phonica.[20] In September 2018, she won Best Track for It Makes You Forget (Itgehane) at the AIM Independent Music Awards.[21] It Makes You Forget (Itgehane) was listed on the tracklist for FIFA 2019.[22]

In 2019, Forbes named Gou as one of the Asian leaders, pioneers and entrepreneurs under age 30.[23] In February 2019, Gou launched her own fashion label KIRIN (“giraffe” in Korean), supported by Virgil Abloh, under the New Guards Group.[24][25][26] The following month, she announced the launch of her own independent record label, Gudu Records (gudu means "shoes" in Korean).[14]

In June 2019, Gou released DJ-Kicks: Peggy Gou, the 69th installment of !K7's DJ-Kicks mix compilation. The album became her first Billboard chart appearance, reaching 9th in Dance/Electronic Album Sales, and the second compilation that ever got into the top 10 after Moodymann's.[27]

On July 25, 2019, Gou released her first music video for her hit 2019 track Starry Night exclusively on Apple Music, directed by Jonas Lindstroem, and once again featured Yoo Ah-in, the lead actor in the award-winning South Korean film, Burning.[28][29] The music video was released worldwide on YouTube in September 2019.[30]