CL and Teddy: Inside The Black Label's Next Move

CL is in talks to sign an exclusive contract with The Black Label, the company founded by producer Teddy, allkpop reported, a deal that would put 2NE1's leader inside one of the fastest-moving companies in K-pop.

The X account @Zoa_Kwon_ posted that The Black Label confirmed on Oct. 28 that it is discussing an exclusive contract with CL, and that no finalized deal has been announced.

The detail doing the real work is smaller than a contract. allkpop reported that CL has also finished filming a music video for a new song, which it framed as raising expectations for a comeback. If the deal closes, it would be her first new agency in about seven years.

The shape of that gap is well documented. CL debuted in 2009 as the leader and rapper of YG Entertainment's 2NE1 and reached the Billboard Hot 100 with "LIFTED" in 2016. She left YG in November 2019, set up her own one-person agency, Very Cherry, the following year, and released her first full-length album, ALPHA, in 2021.

Teddy is the thread running back through all of it. He founded The Black Label in 2016 after working at YG, and he worked on 2NE1 signatures including "Fire," "I Don't Care" and "I Am the Best," allkpop reported. A contract would not just be a signing. It would be a reunion of the writer and the voice behind some of the era's defining records.

He has since built something considerably larger than a production shop. Digital Music News reported on May 26 that The Black Label had raised a Series B of ₩120 billion, about $79.7 million, with Tencent Music and Krafton participating. Bloomberg supplied the size of the round, and the label confirmed the raise.

The same report placed the company's overall valuation at $663.6 million, or ₩1 trillion, the threshold that made it a unicorn. The Seoul Economic Daily put 2025 revenue up nearly 75% to $49.0 million, or ₩73.8 billion, Digital Music News reported, and Business Korea had said in January that the label was seeking as much as $66.4 million, or ₩100 billion, from investors, Krafton among them. The round came in above that ask.

Here is where the YG story rhymes. Wikipedia lists The Black Label's owners as Teddy at 42%, Saehan Venture Investment at 28% and YG Entertainment at 21.59%, with Jeong Kyung-in as CEO and Teddy as chief creative officer. YG is the company CL walked away from in 2019. A deal would not take her back to it, but it would put her recordings inside a company the old house still holds a fifth of, with the producer who made her early hits running the creative side.

The roster has been widening on its own. allkpop reported that The Black Label is home to artists including BIGBANG's Taeyang, Rosé, Jeon Somi, MEOVV and ALLDAY PROJECT, and that it has expanded into actor management with Park Bo Gum and Im Si Wan. MEOVV launched in 2025 and ALLDAY PROJECT in 2026, and MEOVV's latest album passed 300,000 first-week sales. Teddy and several of the label's producers also worked on the soundtrack for Netflix's K-Pop Demon Hunters.

Set against that, a CL signing reads less like a favor to an alumna and more like a catalog play: a proven voice, a proven producer, and a balance sheet that can fund both. What is confirmed stays narrow: talks, which the label acknowledged on Oct. 28 according to a post from @Zoa_Kwon_; a finished video shoot; and no signed contract. The next beat is the announcement.