- Eric of The Boyz signed with GRID Entertainment on August 10, 2026 to manage his individual music career.
- The move follows a payment dispute with the group's former agency, One Hundred Label, dating back to July 2025.
- GRID Entertainment already manages K-pop acts POW and ALPHA DRIVE ONE members Leo and Sangwon.
Eric, The Boyz’s youngest member, has signed with GRID Entertainment to manage his solo music career; the Seoul-based agency confirmed on August 10, 2026.
GRID Entertainment said it would give Eric “full support” to explore his abilities “in various fields including music.” Eric said his years with The Boyz shaped what he wants to do next, and that GRID’s musical direction and production vision matched the image he’s aiming to build.
Eric debuted under Cre.Ker Entertainment in December 2017 as The Boyz’s maknae, appearing on hits like “Boy,” “No Air,” “Reveal,” and “Thrill Ride.”
Cre.Ker became IST Entertainment in 2021 following a Kakao-linked merger, and The Boyz moved to One Hundred Label in 2024. That relationship soured; the group said it hadn’t received settlement payments from One Hundred since July 2025, and nine members, all but New, opted to regroup under a new label while several pursued individual deals elsewhere.
Bandmate Sunwoo has already signed with hip-hop label GroovyRoom, and Hyunjae is reportedly in talks with Management Seesun.
GRID Entertainment isn’t new to building a K-pop roster. It currently manages group POW and recruited Leo and Sangwon in May 2025; both went on to debut in January as members of ALPHA DRIVE ONE.
The signing lands in an active year for artist-management moves: Yoo Jeong-yeon recently signed with Varo Entertainment for management.
Eric hasn’t announced solo release plans yet. For now, the bigger story is how cleanly he’s separated his solo career from his group’s, a split that could become a template for other K-pop members navigating messy agency exits.
Takeaways
Eric’s deal is really two stories in one: an idol carving out solo representation, and a group quietly surviving an ugly agency breakup by splitting its business affairs across multiple companies. That’s not how K-pop contracts usually work: one house, one label, one hierarchy.
GRID betting big on Eric while still growing POW and ALPHA DRIVE ONE also says something about how smaller agencies are trying to compete for established talent instead of only developing rookies.
Does managing solo and group careers separately actually work long-term, or does it create competing priorities down the line? Could the One Hundred Label dispute push other K-pop groups to negotiate more flexible, split-representation deals from the start?
