Song Min-ho (Hangul: 송민호; born March 30, 1993), better known by the stage name Mino, is a South Korean rapper, songwriter, producer and member of the boy group Winner, signed under YG Entertainment. He appeared in the television series The Strongest K-POP Survival and Show Me the Money 4, where he finished as series runner-up. Alongside Bobby, he is part of the hip hop duo MOBB, who released the four-track album The Mobb in September 2016.

Early life & Career

Song Min-ho was born in Yongin, Gyeonggi Province. He has a younger sister named Dan-ah, who was a member of New F.O. He graduated from Hanlim Multi Art School in 2011. He was also a member of the underground rapping scene, under the name Mino or Hugeboy Mino, collaborating with other underground rappers-turned-idols, namely Block B’s Zico, Kyung, P.O, Phantom's Hanhae, SPEED's Taewoon and M.I.B's SIMS.

2011–13: BoM & Acting debut

Mino debuted in 2011 as a rapper in the group BoM, under Y2Y Contents Company. However, the group disbanded two years later. While still active in the group, Mino made his first acting appearance in March 2012 in the cable drama The Strongest K-POP Survival, broadcast on Channel A.

2013–14: Debut with WINNER & Solo Appearances

In 2013, Mino was accepted into YG Entertainment through auditions. In the same year, he competed as part of the trainee group "Team A" in Mnet's reality-survival program WIN: Who Is Next. Initially, he was the leader, but due to an injury part-way through the show, he was replaced as leader by Kang Seung-yoon. During the finale episode on October 25, 2013, it was announced that Team A had won the competition and would be debuting as Winner. Winner released their debut album 2014 S/S on August 12, and made their debut performance at Inkigayo on August 17, 2014.

In October 2014, Mino was featured in Epik High's single "Born Hater" with Beenzino, Verbal Jint, B.I, and Bobby. In December 2014, he collaborated with 2PM's Nichkhun, CNBLUE's Yonghwa, Infinite's L and B1A4's Baro to perform at the 2014 SBS Gayo Daejeon, as well as co-hosted the event.

2015: Show Me The Money

In April 2015, Mino appeared in Mnet's rap survival program Show Me The Money 4. He competed under Zico and Paloalto's team, finishing in second place. Through the program, he released several solo or collaborative singles: "Fear", "Turtle Ship", "Moneyflow", "Okey Dokey", and "Victim + Poppin' Bottles". The single "Fear", a collaboration with label-mate senior Taeyang, topped 8 different charts upon its release and went on to become one of the best-selling singles of the year. 2016–2017: MOBB & New Journey To The West

In September 2016, Mino released his Hip-hop single "Body" ahead of his collaboration with label-mate Bobby to form the sub-unit MOBB. Together, they released a four-track single album titled The Mobb, with two title tracks "Full House" and "Hit Me" on September 9. In January 2017, Mino joined as a permanent cast member of tvN's variety show New Journey to the West from season 3 onward. Through the show, Mino has obtained the infamous names Song Mojiri and Song Garak.

2018-Present: Burning Planet & Solo Debut

Ahead of Mino's official solo debut, Mino launched an exhibition in early October called Burning Planet in collaboration with Gentle Monster. Notably, big stars like actor Lee Dong-hwi, Block B's P.O, Li Yi Feng and many others visited the exhibition. The exhibition was held for about a month. Furhermore, Hypebeast critiqued the exhibition to have deep and symbolic forms, such as perfectly displaying being "burnt out" in life, touching on aspects where societies literally work themselves to death. On November 26th, Mino released his first solo album, XX, with a title song called FIANCE. Mino described Fiance as a "trot-hip-hip song", that sampled the 1970's song Songgayang Maid, a song with similar ideas about loving another person's loved one. It reached a high chart position of #1 on NAVER for 3 days.

Philanthropy

In September 2018, it was reported that Song Mino donated his entire modelling fee for his appearance in the Balenciaga X Dazed collaboration to the United Nation's World Food Programme, a humanitarian organization that aims for a world without hunger.- Wikipedia