Baekhyun
변백현- Name
- Byun Baek-hyun
- Born
- 6 May 1992
Runs his own company, INB100, and has toured the world as a soloist while remaining a member of EXO.
Their story
A hill in Hannam
Baekhyun had spent seven years in EXO and in the trio EXO-CBX when SM Entertainment released his first EP, City Lights, in July 2019. He did not go for a big dance single. The title track, "UN Village", is a slow R&B song about driving a date up the hill behind the UN Village neighbourhood in Hannam to look at the lights of Seoul. Beenzino featured on another track, and producers such as Darkchild worked on the record.
Selling like a group
The surprise came with his second EP, Delight. The bright "Candy" was a long way from the debut, and the EP kept selling for weeks. By the end of June it had passed a million copies, something no Korean soloist had managed since Kim Gun-mo in 2001. Bambi followed the next spring and crossed the same line. Weeks later he left for his military service.
R&B at the centre
Almost everything he has released alone sits somewhere in R&B. For Bambi he said he pushed his voice further forward in the mix, and later title tracks kept that focus: "Pineapple Slice" is sultry and playful, with Baekhyun as a vampire in the video, while "Elevator" puts a romantic pop melody over a trap beat. The b-side "Lemonade" got its own video, a love story with a twist.
Where he is now
Since 2024 his solo work has run through INB100, the company he founded, while EXO stays with SM. The first tour under his own name, Lonsdaleite, went around Asia that year. Essence of Reverie led into Reverie, a world tour from Seoul to São Paulo, Berlin and Sydney that came back for encore nights at KSPO Dome that winter before a last stop in Las Vegas. Fans there heard "Magic On The Floor" for the first time, and in March he sang it again on American television, still unreleased.
