A Re-Introduction From AVENU, Three Years in the Making

The multi-faceted artist’s journey from filmmaker to musician was a winding path. For his forthcoming EP, AVENU has found his vision.

“The [new] EP is a very sophisticated and more refined version of myself,” AVENU says in his first major interview. 

When he was eighteen years old, Sam Kim, who records under the stage name AVENU, moved to Atlanta, Georgia for freshman year at Emory University. A self-described “ambitious” filmmaker, in high school, AVENU would often be the boy who would relentlessly seek out help to bring his visions to life. Now at Emory, hundreds of miles away from the small, majority white town he grew up in Indiana, AVENU was trying to pin his ambitions down. 

In high school, AVENU had uploaded music to a secret Instagram page that only a few friends had access to. But as he began freshman year, AVENU released his first single, “It’s Okay”, a tender track that reads like a diary of a teenager learning to believe in himself. “Will I ever be the person I dreamed of when I was three?” he asks in the chorus over an acoustic guitar. “It’s Okay” is about the confusion of trying to live up to your dreams. (“What the hell am I doing?” AVENU asks more than once in the song) 

But perhaps what is most poignant about “It’s Okay” is a request that AVENU makes to his parents: “Papa, if you see me falling, would you still believe in me/ Mama, if you see me crying, please don’t cry with me/ Just tell me I can do it.” 

“That song really captures all the things that I was thinking of, like going to college for the first time, meeting a bunch of new people from different backgrounds,” he told me recently from his home. “Having the pressure of making friends and fitting in while still navigating my academics and pursuing a creative career, which at that time was film. Ever since then, music has been my only outlet to really express my emotions and what I'm thinking at the time.” 

Five years later, AVENU is still based in Atlanta, holding down his first full-time job since graduating from college. On the side, he films passion projects for friends – but this time for fun and not as a professional gig. When I met him backstage at The Loft a few weeks ago, he was shooting a project for his friend FORTY, the Korean American ATL-based rapper, on a VCR camcorder. But his passions have shifted somewhat: Now, AVENU’s going all in on music with a forthcoming EP that reintroduces himself to listeners as an artist who loves jazz and soul.

It’s taken time for AVENU to believe that he’s capable of making this kind of music. It’s taken even longer to work out the sound in the studio. This is not something, he insists, that he could have made as a teenager. AVENU had to do a lot of living to get here. 

“The EP is a very sophisticated and more refined version of myself. It will really show my learning curve when it comes to producing music. I've grown more comfortable showing what my background is with jazz, R&B and soul. I’ve gotten better at translating those ideas,” he explained. Then continued, “It’s kinda like when you go to a new ice cream shop and you get a sampler pack and you get a bunch of flavors.” Fans who have been around since the beginning, like his popular track “Be My Somebody New” will be surprised by the new music. 

“But this is a side I’ve always wanted to show my audience,” he said, “So this is like an all-in-one variety pack.” 

AVENU was five years old when his family immigrated to America from Korea, making him a first generation Korean American.

Moving to America was “an unforgettable moment” for AVENU. “You end up coming to a country where everyone looks different from you, everyone speaks a different language from you,” he said. 

Finding his place in his new home in Indiana was challenging for AVENU. There was nothing that reminded him of home in Korea. As one of the few Asian kids, he stood out and was bullied often. “I was really scared,” he remembers. “I did not want to go to school.”  His parents did what they could to support AVENU, though, including hiring him a personal tutor to learn English as quickly as possible.

AVENU knows that he was lucky compared to other Koreans who immigrated at an older age. “I think it helped because I was so young,” he told me. “It's different for people who are older, when they have more of that Korean culture and the Korean language ability.” 

Where AVENU felt most comfortable though was in his own world at home. “I always had a wild imagination, and I was also known by my family as the only family member who couldn't sing,” he told me with a laugh. “Because my family loves music. We’re a very musical family.” 

The Kim family fostered a creative environment for AVENU and his older brother, who is also a talented singer. AVENU’s parents love music too: His mother plays the piano, and has done so since he was a child. His father loves a night of singing karaoke. Hearing these stories, it's easy to imagine this family, new to America, sharing their love of music over hymns at church or bonding over old Korean songs on the karaoke machine. 

“Whenever people listen to my stuff, I want them to be inspired to create stuff on their own too,” AVENU says. 

When his brother left for college, AVENU began to sing the music he had spent hours listening to on his iPod. At home alone, he would think about performing those songs in front of other people. Could I do it on stage one day? He’d wonder. Would it be crazy? 

“I always had those kinds of dreams for myself,” he remembered. “So whether it was film, whether it was wanting to do music, or anything like that, like drawing art, I always wanted to show the world what I was thinking or the feelings that I was going through.” 

As a child, though, AVENU’s dream job was to work for Pixar.  “I wanted to portray that passion and that creativity through films and through drawings. And I have a very addictive personality, so if I want to do something, I find a way to get to it,” he explained. Eventually he realized that a career in animation would be too difficult, but by that point film had caught his attention. “So I moved on to something I could do at the time, which was take my dad's camera and go out and film stuff and make videos from that.”

By high school, AVENU worked at a breakneck pace to bring the films he imagined to life. “I ended up just becoming that guy at my high school where I would start film projects, and I would be relentless in reaching out to people to be actors,” he said. Looking back today, he feels some embarrassment for how shameless he was pulling in friends for a project. But added, “It also makes me think back to how ambitious and passionate I was about wanting to create stories.” 

It made sense, then, that eventually AVENU’s attention turned towards music. “When I realized that I also love music and writing songs,” he told me, “I put in that same effort as I did with film.”

By the time he left for Emory, the track had begun to change: He was on his way to becoming a musician. 

At Emory, AVENU was once again one of the few creatives on campus, “which was surprising because there were so many people,” he observed. “I really had to seek those creative opportunities myself.” 

AVENU hit the ground running, applying for work study jobs and internship opportunities that offered him experience with videography. The problem was many places weren’t accepting applications from first year students. “But then after a lot of research and networking and interviewing,” he said, “I was able to get a videographer job.”

The benefit to being one of the only creatives on campus meant that AVENU eventually stood out again. “Instead of having to find people, they ended up finding me,” he remembered about making friends. When he was a junior, AVENU posted a vlog about a day in the life of an Emory student. As the video gained popularity, AVENU noticed that he was recognized by more people on campus, especially by younger students. 

“It was crazy, because not only would I get recognized sometimes at the school, but my friends in that vlog would also get recognized by incoming freshmen,” he said. 

Around the same time that AVENU was creating vlogs on his YouTube channel, he also began to focus more on music. Two years ago, a friend reached out to him and offered him the opportunity to open for K-R&B artist JUNNY. “I was really surprised, because it had been a while since I released music, because of school and everything,” he said – but AVENU didn’t think twice. He said yes. 

AVENU was connected with B.K., another Korean-American singer based in Atlanta with a crazy falsetto range and a growing network with other Asian American artists.  “I didn't have any performance equipment, nor did I have any performance experience, but B.K. had a lot of that,” AVENU explained. “He has been performing for a very long time. He's been on tours, and he just had a lot of knowledge and experience that I didn't have.” 

B.K. offered to run through the opening set with AVENU, and they quickly became friends. “We really vibed with each other's music and our energy,” AVENU told me. Eventually B.K. proposed the idea of AVENU joining him and two friends, FORTY and DJ Ekkoh to form an unofficial music collective. 

“Ever since then, we've been meeting a lot, sharing each other's music, getting feedback, performing together,” AVENU said. “It's been a very good experience knowing that you have people who have your back, supporting you.” 

The past year has been a learning curve for AVENU. 

Every day, AVENU works at his job from nine to five, and then switches to music as soon as he gets home “from five until whenever I go to bed.” The majority of AVENU’s free time has been spent preparing for his debut EP, honing in on jazz and R&B sounds. That process of experimenting, he told me, is his favorite.

“I’ve wanted to release this EP as soon as possible,” he told me. But he’s hit into roadblocks as he’s learned how to take care of himself. 

When I asked him how he balances a job and a career, he admitted that it’s been a challenge. “I’m still learning how to,” he said quietly. “I don’t really know. This is my first job outside of college.” Maintaining time for himself has been almost impossible, leading him to getting sick – something he was experiencing when we talked. “I used to think I had a good balance,” he added. “But I think now, I need to start taking care of my health. This is part of the journey of navigating your early twenties, not knowing what’s going on or what to do. Not knowing how to take care of yourself.” 

What’s driven AVENU to spend so much time honing his craft is a desire to make music that his heroes might like. It took five years for him to reach a point where he can translate the ideas he’s dreamed of into music. “I wanted to be accepted by all the musicians I admire," he explained. “When they listen to my song, I wanted them to think, ‘Oh this is different from songs I’ve seen other people do.’” 

He’s contemplated taking off the earlier music from streaming, he said, because he’s grown so much from the person who made it. But now he’s beginning to take a wider look at his career. Isn’t it more exciting, I offered, to see someone start from where he did and rise up? 

“Whenever people listen to my stuff, I want them to be inspired to create stuff on their own too,” he agreed  “Although I find a lot of stuff I used to make cringe and embarrassing, I do keep it up for the bigger picture, just to show that you can do this too.”

The new single, which is self-titled as “AVENU”, reflects this growth. It’s a laid-back track heavy on piano and jazz instrumentation. “It’s been a long time coming,” he sings in the opening verse. “Do you still remember me?” You could read these lines as a greeting to an ex, but I also hear it as a way to introduce himself to his listeners. “Meet me at the avenue,” he sings warmly to his girl – and his listeners.

“I’ve always liked the process of making music, just being able to translate my raw ideas from scratch,” he reflected. Making this EP has been so freeing, he told me, because he’s been able to jam with musicians who he respects and talk about their process with them. What he’s learned is that he needed time to develop his confidence as a musician. Now he’s ready to meet listeners in a new space: one where he can share his story of learning to believe in himself. Maybe, you’ll see yourself in this story too. 

“I’m just a regular person like you, like everybody else, who just likes music; who just likes making videos. I’m not some insanely talented musician. I’m not some prodigy,” he said as he thought back over his life.

“I’m here,” he added, “because I put the work in.”