if you’re a fan of astro and have been for a while, it’s likely that you know they were originally called the i-teen boys. if not, well, now you do. i-teen is fantagio’s pre-debut project for any of their trainees. weki meki were called the “i-teen girls” prior to their debut, as well.
when astro were still the i-teen boys, they performed at lotte world from the end of 2014 until march of 2015. it was like 8 weeks worth of performances or something like that. when astro were i-teen boys, there were actually 9 of them. yup. 9 boys were originally supposed to debut and become astro, with a much different concept.
however, the 6 members that became astro were more popular than the other 3. so popular that we still don’t know the name of one of them. the other two are lee jaeseong and son junyong.
and i’m going to educate you about lee jaeseong.
lee jaeseong was one of fantagio’s longest trainees. he had been a trainee since at least 2012, which is when this glorious video was released. he rewrote hello venus’s “venus” into an r&b song. by himself. when he was 16. that’s not an easy thing to do, but he did it, so please appreciate that video.
side note other fantagio trainees who joined from 2012 and before are kang chanhee (2009, now sf9′s chani), moonbin (2010, now part of astro), jung chanwoo (2010, now ikon’s chanwoo), yoojung (2011, now part of weki meki), rocky (2011, now part of astro), sanha (2012, now part of astro).
so jaeseong was part of this actually relatively small group of early trainees. he’s the first trainee that fantagio actually publicized, as that video that i linked earlier and am going to link again bc its glorious is the very first video posted on the official iteen youtube channel. he was also one of the people fantagio got to sing at their 2013 audition as a showcase of sorts, video here. so, kind of a big deal.
he performed with the i-teen boys at lotte world. he’s in this video, starting sitting in the chair on the left. but that video isn’t it. jaeseong participated in superstar k2, a survival sort of program for children. sort of like america’s got talent but for young korean kids. and boy lemme tell you.
for those of you that read this far, i have a surprise for you. lee jaeseong is part of a new group.
hf music company is the home of the dal shabet and dreamcatcher as well as several trainees who participated on produce 101 (park woodam, woo jinyoung, jung woncheol, jo yonggeun). hf music announced that they have a new group, a project of sorts, called 동급생, or “classmate.” this group consists of 3 boys born in 1997, and lee jaeseong is one of them.
the 3 boys haven’t shown their faces in any of their videos or their twitter updates at the time i’m writing this, but they are all incredibly talented.
check out this cover jaeseong did of a song by the weekend.
on august 25, 2017, the boys “debuted” with a digital single titled 나의 별 (trans: my star). you can find the hand-drawn style music video here. you can also find the song on spotify by searching 동급생.
the other boys (seongjeong and byeongmin) have also released solo covers of various songs. seongjeong covered stay by zedd and alessia cara and if i get drunk today by suran. byeongmin has covered super super lonely by dindin.
as a group, they have covered:
black and white shirt = jaeseong
white button up = seongjeong
blue shirt with white lines = byeongmin
sm station song tell me (what is love)
blue and white striped = jaeseong
black jacket, white shirt = seongjeong
basically, i’m hoping that you’ll give them some support and i’m hoping you’ll be interested because one of them was part of i-teen boys with the rest of astro. if you have any questions, i did make a blog for them @3classmate so check it out if you’re interested! i’m still setting up the blog as of making this post, but i’ll be translating everything they post and digging for any information on them that i can since there isn’t much else i can do right now.
