I'm the type of person that if I feel strongly about something and if I really want to do something, I'm just gonna do it. And if it works out, amazing, and it's like 'I told you so,' but if it doesn't work out, that's fine.
I don't know why I feel the need to try and do everything. But I kind of have this mentality that you live once, and I have a lot of things that I want to do and there's a lot of things that I want to try. So I have to at least give it a shot before I don't try at all or like, give up on things.
Korean-Americans, Asian-Americans are so unbelievably underrepresented in the U.S. entertainment and media industries and I don't think we are given a real shot.
Whenever I write my music, it's always been in English first and then I take it into Korean.
I would be criticized, like, 'You don't talk Korean enough. You sound very American. You sound very white in your music.' And I'm like, 'Whoa.'
I think there are probably ghosts in the world. I have not seen one but I feel like I felt the presence of one. In Korea there's been a superstition that ghosts love music, so they're always in a studio or a dance-training place.
Coming to Korea and becoming a singer, I always had two big goals personally. One was to be able to make it at some point so that I could do good things - I was always raised with an interest in social impact, philanthropy. The other thing was to be able to take my music and do it on a global scale.
Sunbae-hoobae seniority is a very tricky, weird kind of thing.
I learned Spanish as my second language from middle school through high school. I grew up volunteering at homeless shelters and tutoring kids of Latin immigrants in Atlanta, who didn't speak any English. That prepared me for when I traveled.
So Mandarin, I picked it up, I spent a year in Beijing studying but then when you don't use it, languages, you just kinda forget it all.
When you first make money, you're just excited that you have it and just buy things on a whim. You don't really think about the implications that taxes have, because when you owe money, all of a sudden all of the money in your account - it's gone!
I think Korea is so focused on just the charts, and what's going to chart and what's not, and I'm sure it's like that way in the States as well, to a certain degree. But I enjoy working in the States a little bit more. Because it's more about making music that is the right sound and the right fit to me, not so much just chasing the charts.
I feel like I've always been drawn to a very diverse range of music and I've always enjoyed experimenting, so I'm not quite sure where exactly my music will go.
Even within K-pop, there should be more representation. It's not just groups, and it's not just incredibly produced, highly choreographed pieces. There are vocalists, there's R&B, there's hip-hop, there are other types of people and voices. There's space for all of that to be shared and to be appreciated.
When you think of Gallant's music and his voice, you don't automatically think, 'Oh, Eric Nam would be great a fit' or 'Hey! Tablo would be an amazing fit.'
Asian-Americans are fighting for space and fighting for visibility and for acceptance.
Oftentimes you're breaking out because your face is lacking moisture or hydration.
I have a very complicated relationship with my skin. It is sensitive, I think, to just changes in water, particularly because I travel so much.
I know people are going to be like, 'why do you have so many songs with the word 'you' in it? 'Idea Of You,' 'Into You,' 'Like You,' 'You-Who'... Well, sorry, but it just works out that way.
I was born and raised in the suburbs of Atlanta, which as you can imagine, was not the most diverse place to grow up in as a Korean American.
