Kang Seung-yoon (Korean: 강승윤; born ), also known mononymously as Seungyoon or Yoon, is a South Korean singer-songwriter, actor, and leader of boy band Winner. His appearance on the reality television singing contest Superstar K2 (2010) rose him to prominence after finishing in fourth place. The digital single "Instinctively", became his first number-one single as a soloist and neared 2 million digital copies in sales. On January 12, 2011 he signed with South Korean label YG Entertainment and officially debuted as a solo artist on July 16, 2013 with the digital single "It Rains" (비가 온다) and as the leader of Winner on August 17, 2014. Kang ventured into acting through the sitcom, High Kick: Revenge of the Short Legged (2011). His first lead role with the web series, We Broke Up (2015) earned his first award in the field with "Best Male Actor" awarded by the K-web Fest Awards. His roles in Prison Playbook (2017) and Kairos (2020) further solidified his career as an actor. Kang also served as the "122nd Masked King" on MBC's King of Mask Singer under the alias "Chow Yun-fat". He achieved a record-breaking six consecutive wins, earning him the titles: "The First 6-Time Idol Champion" and "The Youngest Champion" at the time. Life and career 1994–2009: Early life Kang Seung-yoon was born in Haeundae District, Busan, South Korea, on January 21, 1994, as a Catholic with the baptismal name Don Bosco and as an only child. Raised by his single mother, his parents divorced within the early portion of his childhood and was no longer in contact with his father who chose to depart from their lives until news of his death was relayed long after his passing. His mother owned a business but suffered financially from balancing out the accumulated debt. It resulted in her entire profits being allocated towards the debt and so, was in need to borrow more money for additional costs which in turn, resulted in both further liabilities and a bad credit rating and brought more hardship. In school, he excelled in mathematics with an IQ of 141; however, in his second year of middle school, he became a victim of bullying by those he considered "friends" and dropped out of middle school after he developed social anxiety. In this period of time, he learned to play the classical guitar from an academy and briefly took classes for billiards