INTERVIEW: Beomhan Wants to be the Biggest K-Pop Idol in the World
Beomhan/ FM Entertainment and ATLocal
When it came down to whether he would stay home or move to Korea, Beomhan flipped a coin.
It was 2020, in the middle of the pandemic, and the FM trainee had come to a crossroads with the future of his career. “I’m a very impulsive person,” he told me with a grin over coffee one afternoon in Duluth, Georgia.
“So, I took a coin,” he said. “And decided if it lands on heads, I go to Korea. If it lands on tails, I stay home.”
He flipped the coin but didn’t bother to look at the result. He would go to Korea. The decision was made the second he threw the coin up. “When it’s in the air,” he reflected, “you know what you want. There is no doubt.”
“If it was tails?” he wondered aloud to me… He didn’t bother answering the question.
For the past year, Beomhan has become one of the most famous and exciting figures in K-Pop. He frequently goes viral on TikTok for being an outspoken renegade working inside of an industry that has, for years, pre-packaged idols for public consumption.
Beomhan has proven himself as a rapper, a singer, and a dancer who wins fans over instantly with his sense of humor. On a recent livestream, he exposed his staff for listening to One Direction on the company’s iPad and then suggested he’s over seven feet tall because he is taller than a (miniature) door. He can tell a great story, too, a talent that he’s mined by watching his social media numbers drive up the more he talks.
“It was through TikTok that I learned it was okay to express myself to fans,” he said.
In the beginning of his time at FM, he tried to play along with a conservative idol image, but Beomhan tested the limits of his staff. “My company would tell me to not talk about something or be stupid [and to just] be quiet,” he said, but the more he talked about whatever he was told to not talk about, the more viral he became.
“Pretty quickly, my [Instagram] Lives became sixty minutes of me trying to farm as many clips as possible,” he laughed.“There’s a lot of things I adjusted for TikTok, like how to tell a story in under 15 seconds.”
On livestreams, Beomhan talks quickly, sometimes breezing through a sentence in under two seconds. But in person, he’s deliberate and concise with his words. He’s articulate, too. “I am definitely passionate and determined,” he said. He’s worked hard to believe in himself and to harvest that belief into the success he’s experiencing today.
“Beomhan is proactive, assertive,” Jay Chang, his best friend who Beomhan is currently touring the United States with, told me. “He knows what he wants and will do it. That’s one of the most admirable things I’ve seen in someone.”
“His ability to do exactly what he says he will do,” said Jay. “Is what makes him so inspirational to me.”
When Beomhan laughs, his whole body falls into motion. He throws his head back and sometimes takes a moment to compose himself before he returns to a story. Beomhan uses humor as a resource to cope; a tool to put others at ease and to befriend them.
“I grew up in Brooklyn,” he said. “But only for a short amount of time. I was born here for a passport and then I was sent right back to China.” His parents are first generation immigrants who came to the U.S. so Beomhan would be an American citizen. When Beomhan was born in 2001, China regulated a one-child-only law, and because Beomhan has an older sister, his parents couldn’t stay.
In order for his parents to stay afloat and make ends meet, Beomhan was sent to live with his grandmother for four years in a small village in the Southern corner of China with no more than 2,000 people.
There’s a mystery to the iconic Coney Island of Beomhan's childhood, where he moved to stay with his family after he left China. On this island, there’s a carnival atmosphere for the tourists: the alluring bright lights, the “high” of the cotton candy, the comfort of the funnel cake, and the intoxicating fairs.
But inside Coney Island, where Beomhan grew up, there is a world hidden to most. The behind the scenes spots, where the muck and garbage are thrown; the dark corners where everyday folks fear to tread. Here, on this island, is the underbelly of brightly lit rumbling roller coasters and euphoric sugar highs. This is the island that sharpened Beomhan’s wit; that gave him the street smarts to survive. He’s a boy rich with charisma and talent; someone who is layered with complexities. What you see is what you get, unless you are allowed to dig deeper. Boehman is Coney Island, the lusciousness and the mischievousness, the fast, splintering turns of a thrill ride kept on track by guard rails built for self-preservation
“I’ve told him this before,” Jay explained, “but I see a lot of my dad in Beomhan. My dad grew up in the Bronx and they’re from similar situations.” There is a toughness one must develop when they are left to their instincts to prove themselves.
As a child, Beomhan watched his father leave for work in construction every morning, a job he still holds today, and work tedious hours to provide for his family. His father does not know English, choosing instead to hold on to the language from his homeland. “It has an extremely strong dialect,” Beomhan told me and it’s used by only a few thousand people. Some of us preserve what we can.
He learned quickly in school that his lineage could get him bullied. “I used to get picked on a lot for not speaking English,” he told me about his time growing up there. “I had to learn English and I didn’t want to fight people, so I had to be friends with them instead.”
Beomhan’s ability to observe a situation, read the room, or tell a compellingly funny story comes from these formative years.
“To be friends with people who are always trying to put you down or hate you, you have to be quick.” He snapped his fingers as he said this. This was daunting and challenging, but it made Beomhan become a quick read on someone.
“If I don’t make these people laugh, I am going to get my lunch money stolen,” he’d think to himself. But Beomhan didn’t want to be underestimated and he wasn’t about to get bullied. So, within a few years, the teen conquered not just English but Mandarin, Korean, and Cantonese, too.
Beomhan never considered performing until one day at school when six boys approached him with an offer.
“Do you know who BTS is?” they asked. Then, with a question that would shift the trajectory of his life, they followed up with, “Would you wanna do a dance cover with us for the school talent show?”
Beomhan wasn’t entirely sure who BTS was, but he searched their videos on YouTube and found “Fire”, the song the guys needed a seventh member for.
“I didn’t dance at all in high school before this,” Beomhan said. But he dove in head first for the talent competition. “We rehearsed that choreography for seven months for our school talent show.” They lost, but it was during those months of preparation that Beomhan realized that dance had seeded a fire in him.
“I realized I love this and want to do this forever,” he said. He encouraged his friends to continue practicing with him; to join him in dance classes and improve.
“Let’s go back next year and win this talent show,” he remembered saying to the group as a form of encouragement. But they weren’t interested. Why wasn’t everyone having as much fun dancing as he was? This art form felt so freeing; so exciting; so perfect to express just who Beomhan was. it didn’t feel right that his friends couldn’t see it.
Eventually, Beomhan understood that if he wanted to continue, he’d have to go at it on his own. “The deeper I got the more I realized I loved dancing and wanted to do this forever,” he said.
His mindset was straightforward. He recalled thinking,“I’m gonna put my head down and invest in this”
Beomhan returned to the talent show that he lost the next year and performed again. “I won the talent show the next three years in a row, by the way,” he said proudly.
Beomhan and his best friend Jay, who he is currently touring North America with.
Beomhan does not give up.
That’s something I want people to know about him. He might be the funny person you watch on your TikTok’s For You Page, but he’s also deeply thoughtful and motivated. There is more to his story than the boy you see for two minutes on social media.
“If I had a plan and I wanted something,” he said. “I would move the earth to get it.”
Right now, his mind is tuned into how to turn this career in K-Pop into something long term. He knows he’s picked a path that is littered with possibilities, hopes, dreams, and reroutes. “In normal jobs, you just keep going up until retirement,” he observed. “But as an idol, you have a good ten years and then it’s downward and you have to set up your life before then. In five years, I will have to win and then I’ll have to learn how to translate that win.”
This month, Beomhan and Jay get their first shot at win with their first single together “The Awakening”. In just a few days, the single sold out on their website and has become a smash online.
“We finally made this song happen,” Beomhan said excitedly. “Preparing for the dance and recording was a great process. Please listen to the Awakening! It carries a nice story of who we were before and after the tour. It is a gift for you guys curated by us.”
In ten years Beomhan will be 31. While it’s true that K-Pop idols rarely have careers past their twenties, our concept of the industry is beginning to shift. Perhaps in a kaleidoscope view of these possibilities, Beomhan will be part of a new generation of artists able to change the industry. When we talk about K-Pop, we often think of a genre that can feel repressive or stifling. But times are changing and the industry is responding accordingly. Fans, too, are growing older with the idols.
I hope that not only can Beomhan win, but that he will remake the industry in his image. It deserves to not only have his talent, but also his authenticity. And I hope his passion, his wild dreams to go farther than he ever imagined, will never be tamed.
“I’ve said I wanted to be the biggest idol in the world, even when I couldn’t sing, dance or rap.” He said and then met my eyes. “My friends have watched me move every single obstacle to do this, and that’s led me here.”
