In 2009, G-Dragon was featured on singer Lexy's song "Super Fly" for her album Rush alongside Taeyang and T.O.P. He later collaborated with the Japanese boy band W-inds. for their single, "Rain Is Fallin'/Hybrid Dream". His first solo album, Heartbreaker, was initially scheduled to be released in April that year, but was pushed back to August. Featuring collaborations with several artists, including Teddy of 1TYM, Taeyang, Kush, CL and Sandara Park of 2NE1, the album marked a change in G-Dragon's appearance as he dyed his hair blonde to match its concept. Propelled by its lead-single of the same name, an electronic pop song that sold nearly five million downloads, the album surpassed 300,000 copies sold and went on to win Album of the Year from the 2009 Mnet Asian Music Awards. Shortly after Heartbreaker's release, G-Dragon was accused of plagiarism by Sony Music when his tracks "Heartbreaker" and "Butterfly" were alleged to be similar to Flo Rida's "Right Round" and Oasis's "She's Electric", respectively. However, EMI, the record label that distributed "Right Round" said that they saw no similarities between these two songs.
