Hyo3 Returns with YUNG CHENS for the Single “RIP”

Hyo3’s new single “RIP” dropped this week as a collaboration with YUNG CHENS.

Hyo3’s caught feelings on his new single “RIP”.

“RIP is very straightforward lyrically,” he told me this week from Los Angeles. “Basically it’s about wanting someone who is really captivating and attractive. You’d do anything to have that person, they’re so bad and perfect that they really make you feel like you could ‘RIP’.” 

The song first came together in late 2022 while Hyo3’s family was on vacation. “I was recording with my really old 2013 MacBook with my mic in my garage,” he said, “and one night I ended up writing RIP and was happy with the direction it was going.”

For a while, Hyo3 couldn’t find anyone he thought would be a good fit, so he shelved the song and worked on other projects. “Fast forward to January and YUNG CHENS liked a few of my photos on IG,” he said. “And naturally I was shocked because I’m a fan of his music.” Hyo3 had watched the rapper kill it on “High School Rapper 4”, an Mnet South Korean survival show that found rookie rappers. 

Hyo3 decided to take his chance and messaged the rapper to tell him how much he loves his music. YUNG CHENS felt the same about Hyo3. “He basically told me he really liked my voice and my music,” Hyo3 recalled. “He said he discovered me through my song ‘Faint’ from my ‘Dead or Alive’ EP, because I had featured his good friend Park Hyeon Jin, who is a known artist signed to H1ghr Music.” 

Then Yung Chens surprised Hyo3 when he said he wanted to work together. Hyo3 sent him the track, “And the rest is history.” 

By Hyo3’s estimates, he was dreaming of making music as far back as middle school. “I say “fantasize”  only because back then I had absolutely no knowledge of how to actually make decent quality music as an inexperienced little kid,” he said with a laugh. 

Growing up in central California, Hyo3 looked up to his older cousins, whose taste in punk, alternative music stuck with him. “Back then they put me on bands like Paramore, Linkin Park, and Fall Out Boy,” he explained. “They were in bands themselves. They all played guitar, so I always thought that was really sick.” 

Hyo3 comes from a diverse background. He’s from mixed blood: Filipino, Korean, Chinese and Black. “I think growing up with such a diverse ethnic background  definitely helped in exposing me to a lot of different cultures and people at a young age. There are cases where people end up growing up in kind of non-diverse bubbles, but for me I was fortunate enough to be able to spend time with the many different sides of my family.” That exposure, plus the musical traits his cousins gave him, made Hyo3 an open-minded person. 

By sixth grade, Hyo3’s grandmother gave him a guitar and eventually, “I got as good as them, if not better than my cousins,” he said. 

Hyo3 continued to make music in high school. He started with production. “It wasn’t until around 2018 when I started messing around on my guitar and making instrumental type stuff in Logic Pro X on my mom’s iMac,” he said. “In 2020 was when I actually started producing beats, and in 2021 I eventually started singing.” 

Hyo3 chose his stage name as a play on the Korean language. “Naming anything is probably the hardest thing for me to do, just because there’s so many possibilities and the potential for a name to end up sounding dumb is really high,” he said. “The word “Hyo” in Korean means filial piety, but I just randomly thought of it and attached a number to my stage name to differentiate myself so I don’t get potentially confused with any other artist. Hopefully it sounds cool to everyone, or at least cool enough.” 

“Don’t Look Back, Look Forward” was the first EP Hyo3 produced with a diverse lineup of hip-hop artists including Island Emoji, LEVITATE, and Hushy. The EP breezed freely between hip-hop and pop beats, but Hyo3’s voice wasn’t featured, something that would change soon.

But eventually, Hyo3 decided to push himself more as an artist and started to add his vocals to mixes. “One of the biggest reasons was that it was simply more fun for me,” he said. “There’s a lot of work that goes into producing and beat making. At times it can be extremely tedious. Recording my own vocals and just simply singing and writing over beats is just more appealing to me at the moment.”

Hyo3 began to get over the nerves he felt when he sang. “The other reason I wanted to start singing was because I wanted to be at the forefront of my own music. I used to have other artists sing and rap over my music for me because I was really shy about my own singing voice,” he said. “After some time I finally embraced my voice and gained the confidence I needed to show the world my voice.”  

“Show You Up” was the first EP  that Hyo3 made as a vocalist and producer. “ That was extremely fun for me to navigate and explore as an artist,” he told me. “Before that I released a couple singles as a vocalist, but ‘Show You Up’ was my first full  blown project where I was singing.”

The EP came together from July to December 2021. “I was still in university at the time, but once I was done with my school work and classes during the day I was grinding out songs till the early mornings when the sun was basically coming out,” he said. 

Hyo3’s soft, easy voice can glide easily across R&B and hip-hop beats, but he still pushed himself to experiment on “Show You Up”. Take the opening song “Slide Thru” which swaggers with confidence and seduction thanks to the hip-hop production. “Selfish”, the second track, mixes indie pop and R&B, with a flirtatious delivery. “Stay the night,” he tells a girl. “My patience is on the low.” 

“I write all of my lyrics. I write from my own personal experiences or from other people that I know,” he explained. “When I include Korean lyrics into my songs I usually consult my fellow Korean artist friends to translate something I want to say or suggest a line so that it sounds good and natural.” 

Hyo3’s music takes cues from some of the biggest in K-R&B and hip-hop. Listen to him and you can easily imagine him on the same playlist as artists like Jimmy Brown or GEMINI. But “RIP” is the most self-assured Hyo3 has sounded on a track. 

“Future’s bright/ Cuz when you’re fuckin’ with me, I can tell that you’re feelin’ my vibe,” Hyo3 spits in “RIP”. Hyo3 and Yung Chens trade bars over a beat that’s perfect for cruising around on late night drives. And here, Hyo3 sounds confident; like a singer who’s able to hold his own against an equally talented rapper. 

“RIP” is “a song about desire,” Hyo3 explained, and it continues his trajectory of being in the driver’s seat of his career as an artist. “I wrote the lyrics to ‘RIP’ from my own perspective,” he said, “but I embellished a little bit in some parts to make things a little more interesting.” 

Hyo3 plans to release more music this year, and to continue to push himself as a soloist. He’s already a triple threat as a rapper, singer, and producer. But “RIP” signifies what the artist is capable of, and how fast he’s grown in only two years. Don’t miss out on how far he could go. 

You can stream “RIP” now. Check out Hyo3 on Apple Music and Spotify.