Deux
Background information
Origin	South Korea
Genres	K-pop, New Jack Swing, Hip hop
Occupation(s)	Singers, dancers
Years active	1993–1995
Labels	Jigu Records, K&C Music
Past members	Lee Hyun Do Kim Sung-jae

Deux ( Korean: 듀스) was a South Korean K-pop duo from the early 1990s, who were among the first to incorporate hip hop into Korean music. ^[1]

Lee Hyun-do and Kim Sung-jae first met in high school, when a friend of Lee's introduced the two together. ^[2] Before Deux were formed, Lee and Kim started their careers as members of Wawa, the dance team of singer Hyun Jin-young. ^[3] The previous members Kang Won-rae and Koo Jun-yup, who were to enlist in the military, suggested Hyun take in Kim Sung-jae, who later brought in Lee Hyun-do. ^{[4] [5]} Lee and Kim separated from Hyun Jin-young's dance team to form Deux, ^[4] and on 23 April 1993, Deux made their official debut. ^[6] Their first album was fully produced by Lee Hyun-do. ^[7]

At the beginning of 1994, the group released their second album, Deuxism, its lead single the song "We Are". ^[8] The album sold 300,000 copies a month and a half after its release, ^[9] and "We Are" topped the charts of the SBS music program TV Gayo 20 for five consecutive weeks. ^[10] Deux's next album, Rhythm Light Beat Black, included both remixes of their old work and new songs. ^[11] At the end of 1994, Deux won the SCK Popularity Award at the Golden Disc Awards (then named the Korea Visual and Records Grand Prize Award). ^[12]

Force Deux, the group's third studio album, was released in April 1995. Seeing over a million pre-orders, the album accumulated 900,000 sales a month and a half after its release. The lead track, "Break Off the Yoke", charted high on the three major Korean broadcasters' ( KBS, MBC, and SBS) music programs, almost winning to Roo'ra's "Angel Without Wings" on SBS's TV Gayo 20. ^[13]

On 7 June 1995, Deux held a press conference announcing their disbandment, citing health issues caused by their busy schedules. The group stated that they would hold a free "goodbye concert" from 7—8 July, and after a TV Gayo 20 performance on 17 July would completely split up. ^{[14] [15]} In November, Kim Sung-jae released his debut solo album, but he was found dead on 20 November, a day after his first performance. ^[16] Lee Hyun-do announced his retirement following Kim's death, but returned with a solo album in 1996. ^[17] The next year, a greatest hits album called Deux Forever was released, which included an unreleased track called "Love, Fear". The song was originally meant for Kim Sung-jae's second solo album; Lee Hyun-do made it a duet by adding his own vocals to the track. ^[18]

Deux's music is influenced by various kinds of black music, ^[7] including hip hop, R&B, and new jack swing. ^{[19] [20]} Lee Hyun-do produced most of their output, while Kim Sung-jae took charge of the choreography and fashion. ^{[21] [22]} Along with groups like Seo Taiji and Boys and Noise [ ko], they were part of the "rap-dance" trend of the early 1990s. ^{[1] [8]} Kim Seong-hwan of the Korean Popular Music Institute wrote, "Their intense choreography, which was more faithful to B-boying than other dance groups, and their music, which was closer to overseas black music trends, clearly differentiated them from Seo Taiji and Boys and Hyun Jin-young." ^[10] They are said to be the first artists in Korea to release a song consisting purely of rapping, with the track "Untitled". ^{[23] [24]}

In 2013, Mnet included Deux on their Legend 100 Artists list. ^[25] Deuxism and Force Deux ranked 81st and 35th place respectively on Kyunghyang Shinmun's Top 100 Korean Popular Music Albums list. ^{[1] [26]} Music critic Han Dong-yoon wrote in a Jugan Kyunghyang article that after Deux, "Korean hip-hop and dance music began to show rapid growth". ^[7] Naming the group's debut song, "Turn Around and Look at Me" one of the 100 best songs in Korean pop music history, a writer for Rolling Stone stated that "trailblazing duo Deux helped usher in hip-hop — the music, dance, and fashion — to Korea during the early Nineties." ^[27] For the group's 20th anniversary in 2013, a tribute album project went underway, on which musicians like Brave Brothers, Shinsadong Tiger, and Muzie participated. ^[28]