in october of 2016, lay's solo career began with the release of "what u need?" as a surprise gift for his fans on his birthday. the song was ranked number one in china v chart, as well as in "billboard" world digital songs and had entered the top 60 of itunes, making lay the first chinese artist to appear on the list. he performed the song for the first time on october 10 at asia song festival in busan. on october 28, a day after holding a press conference in shanghai town &amp; country community, lay released his first mini-album titled "lose control", which contains six songs in mandarin, and the music video for the single. lay participated in the production of the album as a producer, and was personally in charge of the composition, arrangement and writing of the lyrics of each song, as well as the translation of the same lyrics in three other languages including english and japanese. the single "lose control" remained in first place in billboard china v chart for six consecutive weeks. "lose control" broke the record in south korea by a large majority of sales of a solo artist, with pre-orders surpassing 200,000 copies before the physical album was published, making the number one album in sales. lay also became the first solo artist to sell more than 40,000 copies of the album within a day and 125,000 after a week of album release. more than a million copies of the digital album have been sold in xiami. he performed "lose control" for the first time on "the show" on november 15. "lose control" was a commercial success reaching first place in gaon album chart.