Jay Park Gives His Honest Thoughts About Retiring From The Industry As An Artist

Jay Park talked about the idea of retiring from the industry.

The artist recently concluded his 33-city world tour titled SEXY 4EVA, with his last stops of the tour being Sydney and Melbourne in Australia on January 10 and 12 respectively.

SBS PopAsia conducted an interview with him during his stop in Australia, hosted by Andy Trieu. In the interview, the topics ranged from the news of his donation to the Australia bushfire rescue funds to the founding of AOMG, and covered many more topics as well!

One of the topics that also came up was Jay Park’s earlier announcement about his retirement. In 2019, Jay Park had posted on Twitter about his intention to retire, feeling like there’s no more “space” left in the industry for artists like him. In the interview, he was asked to elaborate on the announcement he had made almost a year ago.

You’ve also spoken about retiring before. In the new year, what are your thoughts on that?

—Andy Trieu

Jay Park’s answer to the question begins with him first establishing his passion and motivation to do music as an artist.

I’ve never questioned or doubted my motivation or my will and drive to go on. Its always been there, even though its been tough and exhausting and etc.

—Jay Park

He then reveals that although he loves music, lately he’s been feeling that his drive to learn and expand his journey as a musician has slowly been coming to an impasse.

…but as of late, I feel like my drive and motivation to continue to learn about music and to kinda expand this journey…the will is dying down a little bit, you know?

—Jay Park

But he stresses that its a natural progression, because he’s been in the industry for such a long time (almost 15 years!), and he’s dedicated a lot of time and effort for his passion. Jay Park then says that while he’s just gonna see where the journey takes him, he’s clear on one thing: he’s never gonna stop doing music!

I feel like that’s just natural because I’ve been doing it for a long time, and I put my all into it. So I don’t know, maybe I’ll take like a year off and then come back, I don’t know. As of right now, I feel like I have a couple of years and then maybe I’ll take a step back and not be an artist, and just be behind-the-scenes.

—Jay Park