Lee Know Holds the Drill: The Viral Moment of Stray Kids
Courtesy of Universal Music Group
Stray Kids’ new music video “Maniac” exists in it’s own time-warped reality.
It’s the kind of video only the leader of 4th generation K-Pop can pull off: Futuristic, shocking and with shots that rival a Marvel movie, “Maniac” is the big pop star moment most K-Pop idols only dream of having. But there is one star-making moment in particular that I can’t overlook in the video. The star is Lee Know (birth name Lee Minho), the group’s main dancer/ rapper who is finally receiving his roses for his camp and commitment to a totally insane performance in the video.
Near the end of the video, as the music suddenly stops, Lee Know aggressively shoves a drill into the wall. His eyes meet the camera, and the viewers, with a chillingly judgmental gaze. Lee Know’s eyebrow arches and his eye raises to meet the viewer.
Lee Know in the “Maniac” video.
“I'm so glad Lee Know is the one holding the drill at the end,” a fan semi-joked on the K-Pop sub-Reddit on the video’s release.
Lee Know eats up the choreography of “Maniac” and when he’s the center of the last two choruses, he puts you on notice: You will pay attention to him. For many new fans of Stray Kids, who might have been drawn in by the visual/ dancer Hyunjin, the deep voice and flex of Felix or leader Bang Chan, Lee Know is the wild card. And after years of being a bias wrecker, the dancer/ rapper is suddenly rising to the top of Stays’ bias lists.
TikTok videos of Lee Know’s perfectly synched choreography go viral as quickly as a funny clip of the rapper grabbing his groupmate’s Hyunjin’s butt during a performance. The idol’s dry sense of humor mixed with his inability to hide his feelings make him relatable to stans.* Like all idols, Lee Know is beautiful but there is an edge to his looks. His Scorpio energy radiates a frosty intensity, both in performances and in variety show clips. There’s a duality to the rapper that I find interesting: His performance can be soft and menacing sometimes within seconds.
Yet Lee Know is a testament to the ever-evolving genius of Stray Kids. He’s only one of the eight piece boy group which consists of Bang Chan, Changbin, Hyunjin, Han, Felix, Seungmin, and I.N..** “Maniac” is the title track of ODDINARY, an album that signifies a blockbuster era for the group. It’s a wild and daring piece of work with visuals that recall the DC movie Venom or even the classic Lady Gaga album Born This Way, which defined and reset her generation.
Courtesy of Universal Music Group
ODDINARY is full of tricks and twists, from the dark opener “Venom”, which feels like a direct nod to the creative direction, to the immaculate ballad “Lonely St.” It’s a body of work that will likely go down as one of the finest albums of the year.
The rise of Stray Kids has been comparatively steady, compared to some of their peers. I first became a fan of the boys in 2020 when they released “Back Door”, which drew both critical praise and commercial success. In November of that year when TIME Magazine published their list of the best ten songs of the year, Stray Kids represented the only K-Pop group to make the cut at number eight. The group felt like a dark horse to me: Yes, they came from one of the top entertainment companies in K-Pop, but their music also felt hard to categorize. This was not light listening; Stray Kids demands your full attention.
While “Back Door” received the most attention, I believe that “God’s Menu”, the track that precedes it, is the statement piece of the group.. Written by Changbin, Han, and Bang Chan, the lyrics are an introduction into their ethos:
Welcome!
It’s easy to choose what you want in this kitchen
Anything on the menu will satisfy all five senses
I want it till I serve them all
I do my research, cross boundaries
No limits, like a creator, I make sound
The video is a visual feast of mayhem: a marching band charges through a kitchen as members lounge on countertops; dance breaks occur in demolition yards; race cars careen down a track. It's pandemonium produced by the boys to announce their arrival as the chef’s of this meal: Sometimes I hear “God’s Menu” as more than a boast; it’s a warning shot: They will eat up K-Pop and spit right back out. On this “hottest menu”, Stray Kids assures the listener, “You’ll be back for more.”
Like most groups in K-Pop, you may believe Stray Kids was manufactured by their company. And if you were to only read the highlights of their career, all signs would point to this being true: After all, Stray Kids is the product of a reality TV show. But that beginning is not the whole story.
In July 2017, JYP Entertainment announced they would debut a new reality show similar to Sixteen, the series that formed the company’s massively successful girl group TWICE. JYPE is a juggernaut in the K-Pop industry: Founded by former idol JinYoung Park in 1997, the company has launched some of the most legendary performers, from 2nd generation iconoclasts 2pm and Wonder Girls to arguably the most popular soloist of the 2000s Rain. In recent years, the company has successfully transitioned TWICE from a girl crush concept to eras that reflect their maturity and growth as young women.
Promotional image for the Stray Kids reality show.
Stray Kids, the series, launched on October 17, 2017 with Park (often known publicly as JYP) serving as mentor and judge. The group was led, from the beginning, by longtime JYPE trainee Bang Chan who also assisted in the formation of the group.
Bang Chan was a longtime trainer at JYPE when he debuted with Stray Kids. As the oldest, he felt responsible for helping each member succeed throughout their time on the reality show. He was led by the belief that Stray Kids would only work if they all debuted together.
The show was intense for all of the trainees. Park often challenged the boys with tough love during evaluations. “Felix, why are you so unconfident?” The CEO asked Felix in episode 4. No one could be timid in Stray Kids, he said.
“Kids, when you’re on stage you need to think that you are very special.”
This toughness followed Park’s coaching style that he has employed for over twenty years.“If you are doing well, I praise less because if I say you do well, maybe you won’t practice again,” he said in a 2006 documentary about his protege Rain. “To the people who are successful, I keep challenging them.” Park explained that he could be extremely hard on those he found the most potential in. “People I really like, may worry deep down inside and think, like, JYP hyung or JYP oppa doesn’t like me.” But that isn’t true: He is the hardest on those he has the most faith in.
The trainees may not have known it at the time, but Park saw something in each of them – especially Felix and Lee Know, both of whom he sent home. Lee Know, who at this time went by his real name Minho, was critiqued by Park for mixing up his lyrics with another member’s. In one scene that sticks with me, the boy became overwhelmed by what he knew he would soon lose. He often held back from tears on the show, but in this moment, when his future was on the line, he couldn’t help it.
Changin stood next to him and noticed Minho struggling. “It’s not the end,” He calmly said to his friend and reached out to touch his arm. Then repeated softly, “It’s not the end.”
Both Felix and Minho were eliminated due to their experience and confidence issues. In one scene, Felix, who is Australian and was not yet fluent in Korean, held up a workbook and proudly exclaimed, “I just finished my Korean book.”
When Felix was eliminated for his lack of fluency in the language, Bang Chan held him as he sobbed. These eliminations weighed heavily on the leader. “Always find me, yeah?” Chan asked him. Felix looked up at the boy with his face streaked in tears. He promised Felix, “I’m never going to leave you behind.”
They all supported one another: “Minho became my dance teacher,” Jeongin remembered. “And he always helped me a lot. He was a hyung that I was grateful for.” The members felt responsible for one another’s success – and failure. Chan’s voice broke when he said, “I should have been there [for Felix]. I’m really struggling.”
Chan’s promise was eventually fulfilled: He found his way back to the lost members. In a twist, Minho and Felix returned for a second chance and debuted in the final lineup on March 25, 2018 with the title track “District 9.” Nearly four years later, I can’t imagine the group without either of them.
“I feel like this album is iconic because it is the first album to reach the Billboard 200 chart. It’s a very, very memorable album,” Chan Bang said this week. “To hear about it this morning, we were shocked because we didn’t expect that placement. We couldn’t believe it,” Felix agreed.
The “Maniac” video certainly helped the group achieve this goal. It captured everything that makes Stray Kids stand out: It’s edgy, thought provoking, and Lee Know’s performance allows us to let out a sputter of laughter at the end. This scene, which only lasts a few seconds, gives the rapper a chance to show why he’s so funny.
But why is Lee Know the perfect person to hold this piece of machinery? Perhaps because he helps to smash the preconceived ideas we have about K-Pop idols. “K-Pop is Stray Kids and we will try hard to make Stray Kids K-Pop,” he said this week in a Buzzfeed interview. Stray Kids, thus, aim to remake the genre from under them. It’s for the the lovers and the losers, if you believe TXT.
I want to celebrate the idols who are rough around the edges. Lee Know might look as polished as any idol, but I admire the way he doesn’t hide when he’s annoyed or frustrated. Check out his eye rolls when he’s done with someone’s shit. He’s savage, too, in his retorts to members, like when Han poked fun at him for hurting his hand. “Guys, please worry about Han [instead of me],” he said sweetly. ”He doesn’t have long to live.” Han’s face instantly looked like his life flashed before his eyes.
To be clear, Lee Know doesn’t see himself as different from anyone. In the same Buzzfeed interview, he joked, “I don’t think there’s anything odd about me.” But Han disagreed: “His personality is odd.”
Still, whether he sees it or not, I relate to the dualities Lee Know holds. His voice might sound light but it is wiry and packs a punch. He’s tougher than first appearance as seen on the group’s reality show. And there’s a certain amount of camp in his performance in the “Maniac” video that I don’t want to get overlooked, either; he’s the idol who will remind you that Stray Kids strays from the pack.
I’m singling Lee Know out here, but all of Stray Kids deserve their credit. Each member represents a team that produces, writes and creates their own concepts and albums. They are not puppets; they are artists with a desire to produce big concepts that shakeup your perception of them.
What is perhaps most awe-inspiring about Stray Kids is that ODDINARY likely isn’t even their peak. In a group where the oldest member is only 24, I can only imagine how their concepts will evolve as they become industry seniors. But for now, “Maniac” is a statement that they are a pop force to be reckoned with. It’s a recipe they’ve cooked up since debut, as the lyrics of “God’s Menu” proclaims:
We just keep on making new things
Because we’re one of a kind
No one can copy us, our own game
From the start, it’s all ours
I can’t help but think how lucky teens are to have a group like Stray Kids who make individuality and being your own extraordinary person, well, special. ODDINARY, Lee know wants us to know, is a reminder that you should be as loud of a person as you want to be. “We wanted to express message-wise, that it is completely fine to be odd and odd is ordinary.,” he said in a recent interview with Forbes. “So just really go be free and be a maniac. Show that maniac side of you. Be whatever you want and just do what you wanna do.”
Lee Know holds the drill in “Maniac”, but we can all mash through the wall — together.
Footnotes:
Full disclosure that I am, and have been since 2020, one of those stans.
In 2019, a ninth member, Woojin, left Stray Kids for “personal reasons”.
For years K-Pop’s “big three” companies were JYPE, SM Entertainment and YG Entertainment. This term was most often used in the late 2000s and early 2010s when K-Pop began to make small increments in the West. These three companies were the ones who tried the hardest to break through with groups such as Big Bang, EXO, Wonder Girls, etc. That is, until Big Hit produced the mammoth success of BTS. Now HYBE, formerly Big Hit, now leads sales.
Stray Kids eliminations [ENG SUB/FULL] if you wanna cry, this is your video
7 rainmakers - eng subbed (part 1 of 6) - this is a fascinating look at Rain’s relationship with JYP and the early years of K-Pop, when things were arguably a little scrappier.
