JAY B

JAY B (임재범, Im Jae-beom; born January 6, 1994, Siheung, Gyeonggi Province) leads GOT7 and stands as one of K-pop's more quietly compelling creative forces. He started b-boying in his third year of middle school under the name Defsoul, competing around Ilsan and Paju, before a JYP Entertainment scout found him at a b-boy competition in 2009. He placed first at the open audition alongside Jinyoung — both outperforming 10,000 applicants — and deepened into music composition after discovering D'Angelo records during training at Konkuk University. After debuting as JJ Project with Jinyoung in 2012 and then as GOT7's leader from January 2014, Jaebeom spent the following decade running a parallel creative life. Photography became a serious pursuit: his first Siam Center exhibition in Bangkok was followed by a second in January 2025. As Def., his R&B alias within the OFFSHORE crew, he released SOMO:FUME EP (August 2021) and Be Yourself EP (2021) through H1ghr Music, then Archive 1: Road Runner in 2024 via Mauve Company following military service — he enlisted February 2, 2023 and returned in November 2024. GOT7's independence from JYP gave the group full ownership of its IP. Jaebeom led the effort to reclaim the group's old social media accounts in January 2025 — another marker of a leader who treats his group's legacy as seriously as his solo artistry. GOT7 released Winter Heptagon in January 2025 with all members united and distributing through Kakao Entertainment.