[ENG TRANS] Every Sound in the World With Only a Mic and a Mouth... WING ยท Hiss โThe Goal is Billboardโ
ORIGINAL ARTICLE: JoongAng Ilbo via Naver
Author: Choi Min Ji
Original date of publication: 3/9/26
Beatboxer WING (left) and Hiss. Photographer Kwon Hyuk Jae
[ENG TRANS]
No instruments, no equipment. With only one personโs breath and vocal chords, notes and rhythms, and extraordinary sounds fill up an album. Here to discuss his first full-length album, coming in May, is beatboxer โWINGโ (Age 28 - Real name Kim Gunho). WING is reputed for his promotion of the beatbox genre through โDopamine,โ the eponymous track he released last year. From elaborate electronic sounds to sharp machine-like fricative ones that seem as though generated through MIDI, brought into the world from the tips of WINGโs lips, as of March of this year the music video for this song has surpassed 45 million views. Another song to be included on the album will be released on the 17th, โPhenomenon.โย
Responsible for producing the album and breathing in sync with him since way back in the day is another beatboxer, โHissโ (Age 25 - Real name Oh Hyunseo). Hiss, forming the other half of a duet with WING, as with โSailor,โ is also a fellow member of the beatbox group โBeatpella House.โ Last year, together with WING, he won 2nd place in the World Cup of the beatbox world, the Tag Team category of the Grand Beatbox Battle (GBB).
I met the pair on the 9th at the JoongAng Ilbo Sangam Office to ask about the charms of beatboxing. โAside from my parentsโ objections and concerns about income, everything about it is good,โ Hiss smiled. That was youth.ย
[**T/N: This translation is a first draft!! I will probably come back and make tweaks to the wording, as I've been away from translating for a little while and parts may be awkward, wordy, or contain small mistakes. I barely proofread it. However, after some consideration, I decided to publish this rough version for now out of sheer excitement and because of the time-sensitive nature of the news. Thanks for bearing with me โค๏ธ๐ญ]
Wing and Hissโs 'Sailor' Official Video. [Image: YouTube Screen Capture]ย
Q: What is your daily routine like lately?ย
A: As Iโm up all night in the studio, I go home around 6am. Then around 2-3pm I go to the practice room, and start warming up my throat. If we have a concert, I hardly sleep at all in the morning and just go on stage. (WING)
Q: Introduce the full-length album youโre currently preparing?ย
A: "Dopamine" is the name of the album, with "Dopamine" as the title track. All 11 tracks are solo beatbox songs. For that moment when dopamine is bursting, I decided to make music you'd want to listen to when you're bursting with dopamine. (WING)
Q. The first to ever release a full-length solo beatbox album in Korea (2019) was Hiss.ย
A: When I was in high school. Of course it was a mess. (Smiles) Iโm also currently working on a full length album. I intend to encapsulate all the music Iโm capable of. Not only beatbox, but also songs combining MIDI and beatbox are included. (Hiss)ย
Wingโs โDopamineโ Official Video. [Image: YouTube Screen Capture]ย
Now, the two are making a name for themselves as the best beatboxers in Korea, but in the beginning, sailing was not so smooth. In his school days, WING took a break from university after being told by his parents to โbeatbox only as a hobby.โ Hiss also only earned his parentsโ approval after winning a national competition.ย
Q: When did you start beatboxing?ย
A: Sixth year in elementary school, I started because I had a cousin who beatboxed, and it seemed cool to me. There was no YouTube back then, so I searched up videos on platforms like โPandora TVโ and practiced in the mirror. At first I spent 2 months trying to make the โboots and catsโ sounds. (WING)ย
A: Second year of middle school, I started by copying a classmate. These days there are those who offer beatbox lessons, but in our day, we had no option but to be self-taught. I practiced with other amateurs in online cafes and grew by going out for competitions. Thatโs around the time when I met Gunho (WING), too. (Hiss)
Q: What do you like about beatboxing? / What are the pros?ย
A: I couldnโt help but fall for it once I experienced the satisfaction of the sounds when they spring from your mouth. With something like this, even if (Elon) Musk comes along with 5 trillion won to come up with Dopamine, replicate and perform it, could that ever happen? AI and robots are incapable of replacing it. Iโm also charmed by how, regardless of rank/hierarchy, your ability to make sounds is based on how hard you work. (WING)ย
A: The only tough thing is reality. โMy parents are against this.โ โI wonโt make money (Worried eyes)โ Those things do weigh on me. (Smiles) (Hiss)
Q: How did you overcome your parentsโ objections?ย
A: My father said, โBeatboxing can never cause someone to feel moved.โ But without lyrics, someone can also be moved by listening to Vivaldiโs โSeasons.โ I fired back, โIf youโre so clear-sighted about the future, you should have made money in stocks, Dad.โ (Smiles) (WING)ย
A: In my house the best place to practice beatboxing is the bathroom. Whenever I was in there practicing for 4 hours straight without coming out, I got quite a scolding. (Hiss)ย
Last March-- BigBangโs GD stands on stage together with WING [Image: GDโs Instagram]ย
WING won the Asia Beatbox Championship in 2018, and Hiss, while still in high school, won 2nd in GBB 2017, from which point their names began to become known. Things picked up in earnest last year with the release of Dopamine as the video became a hot topic online.ย
Q: How did you make Dopamine?ย
A: One day at the practice studio I was supposed to be recording, I caught myself watching shorts for 4 hours and came up with the keyword โDopamine.โ As a self-proclaimedโSciences-Artist*โ I thought it would be good material that I could express through music. Of course, after that I got a separate flip phone for practice, in order for me to not be able to use the internet at the practice studio anymore. (WING)ย
[T/N: This is the word "Sciences" as in how you might describe your major; as in "Natural Sciences," or "Liberal Arts." Wing's major was in smart software systems. He's saying he considers himself a Sciences-oriented artist.]
Q: After Dopamine this past year, there must have been many memorable performances.ย
A: Theyโve all been fun. It was unforgettable last March when I was invited by GD hyung of BigBang to be a guest at his concert and perform in front of tens of thousands of people. (At the time, WING performed GDโs โHeartbreakerโ using beatboxing.) (WING)
A: Last July, Beatpella House held a solo concert. It was so much fun, and I wanted to do more. At the encore we did a completely un-planned performance of โCreepโ by Radiohead. It was totally unprepared ahead of time, but as soon as I started it up, the members joined in with me, and Gunho-hyung sang. (Hiss)ย
Their future goal is to get a Billboard award out of their full length album. โI want to continue to make a living as an artist (not as simply a technician),โ Wing explained. โEven now in beatbox there are new sounds, as a genre the form is constantly being reborn. In the future something else will become a classic. No matter what, I want to create the kind of music that someone will remember someday.โย
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Y'all by the way literally nobody asked but I have to come on here and correct the record, with my sources in order, for my own peace of mind because I just saw something dumb on Wing's beatbox fandom wiki page that I cannot abide, lmao.
His page was edited at some point in the past few months to add a couple lines to the "Trivia" section, but when I read it, it made me go, uhhhh. Where did you get *that* information? And sure enough, I clicked through to check the source and what do you know, it was an AI generated English translation cobbled together from a byline scraped summary about Wing's appearance on You Quiz back in March. I don't blame the person who cited that article, you'd have no reason to think it was inaccurate unless you can speak Korean. It's not like they made it obvious it was an AI authored article. I only knew to check because I do know what he actually said in that interview.
So. Just to set the record straight, I think it is misleading to say "Wing's parents encouraged his decision to pursue beatbox." I'm sure they're wonderful loving people, but he's mentioned on more than one occasion that his parents were originally not that supportive of him wanting to become a professional beatboxer.
I can see where the AI bot that wrote the article got the idea, but what really happened is that during that interview, Wing spent several minutes explaining to the hosts that he spent years trying to convince his parents to let him make beatbox a career. (Again, I don't mean to make it out like they're not good parents or anything, I'm sure they just wanted the best and a reliable career for their son, but they were definitely originally opposed, and even after he got them to agree, I don't think "encourage" would be the word I would use, lol. Maybe "allow" would be more accurate. ๐ )
The thing is, after he finished telling that story, Wing then went on to tell the following anecdote, appealing to the hosts about how excited his parents suddenly became once they found out he was appearing on such a popular, mainstream TV program:
So. Between that joke^ and the nuance of what he said right before this about his parents wanting him to go to college, I can see where the AI got confused, especially after translation, but if you actually look at that clip, he obviously is talking about his parents' support, that's true, but he's clearly being wry!! "Ha, ha, isn't it funny that all of the sudden they're acting supportive, now that beatbox got me on TV, hahaha." Our AI overlords do not yet understand humor, it seems!!!!!! lmaooo
And again, he was very nice about it in this interview, but he was also appearing on television, as a guest on a very famous program he knew his parents were going to be watching. I literally think you could argue that host on Wing's right, in the glasses, Yoo Jae Suk, is probably the most famous and universally beloved TV personality in all of Korea. That man is a national treasure. I would not be surprised at all if Wing's parents really did come around following the success of Dopamine, considering how much of a marker of success this is, but that's still different than making a claim on his wiki page that makes it sound like they were supportive of all 15 years until now.
...Especially considering Wing has told that story at least two other times (before Dopamine existed) and notably, one of those times was after he'd had a bit of a drink. Let's just say the quote he used when he told the story of what his parents (originally) said when he came to them to say he wanted to do music was definitely different with soju in the mix than when he told the same story again later, on You Quiz. lmao
So.... Yes. Yes, I did make a whole account on the wiki just for the sole purpose of taking that one line out. ๐ฅด
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