Growing up, it was less a matter of if and more a matter of when 16-year-old ZIN CHOI would become an artist. As an infant, before most tots her age were talking and walking, she was in a studio booth, laying down backing vocals for the K-pop tracks her parents (legendary writer and producer duo Hitchiker and Kim Bu-min) were recording.
“The song that I was in, it’s called “Sweet Witches (에프엑스)” from f(x) – and I was singing ‘Ooh la la’ when I was little,” CHOI tells NME via video call from Seoul, where she lives.
Between them, CHOI’s parents are responsible for some of the biggest songs to come out of K-pop – including hitmakers such as Girls’ Generation, TVXQ!, SHINee and Super Junior from the iconic record label SM Entertainment. Every time the pair wrote, produced and recorded a song, CHOI was there, soaking it all in.
“I was around my parents working, because I really loved knowing new things. Whenever someone came over to my house, [like] a singer, maybe, or someone really important in the industry, I just sat there on the dinner table ‘till midnight, listening to their conversations,” she says. “I think those conversations really stuck in my head.”
Eventually, CHOI asked her dad for a track that she could try and write some lyrics to. She ended up firing off 20 toplines and hasn’t stopped writing since. She treats her songwriting the way other young teens might keep a journal. “It’s like actually keeping a diary [for] myself, because every lyric of mine is the thought I had at that time, or maybe it’s talking about my priorities or my life,” she says. “Also, I can feel my voice changing, so it’s like a voice memo diary too.”
You can hear CHOI’s growth throughout her releases, as she gets braver and more experimental with her sounds. Her debut EP, ‘mom!!iminlove!’, was released in 2024 – and a second EP, ‘donotdisturb’, arrived this March. Both releases flit between groove-heavy, vibey self-produced beats which her delicate voice floats on top of and crunchier songs with more experimental house-inspired beats. Although it’s the bustling Korean R&B scene that’s captured ZIN CHOI, the osmosis of her K-pop upbringing has clearly left a mark, especially the industry’s innovative love of genre-blending and burying darker themes in bombastic pop tracks.
“Most of the songs, I [sing] them really brightly but the lyrics can be a little scary,” she says, referencing the juxtaposition of some of her boppier tracks with their heavier lyrics about adolescent insecurity and fears of the future. “Sometimes people call it scary, but I think it’s really personal and deep.”
On her ‘C25‘ track “microGiant”, pulsating beats perforate the song’s low-key electric guitar stings – as CHOI lets us into her anxious inner monologue about a crush: “Baby, am I talking way too much? / Spilling all my thoughts, it’s all a rush.” Originally, CHOI was writing the song for a K-pop boyband, but she decided she wanted to keep it for herself, scrapping the original lyrics and switching into diary mode again. “I want to show that I’m a kid. I’m really bright and I like to have fun,” she says about choosing one of the bouncier tracks in the 100 or so unreleased songs she has in her arsenal.
“The song is about a really hyper girl. She’s extroverted, she’s fun and she’s really into this boy, but she worries that she’s talking too much and she thinks she’s annoying. But at the same time, she doesn’t really care,” CHOI explains. “I like saying, ‘She does what she wants and she looks cool doing it’”. Sometimes you can feel small and [you’re not enough], but at the same time you can feel big and that you can do anything.”
This kind of self-confidence is important to CHOI, because it’s how she was brought up to be. The most important piece of advice her high-flying parents gave her about pursuing a career in the music industry? “Don’t be scared to try new things… and just be creative and comfortable with doing things that you aren’t used to.” Her ‘C25’ track will hopefully inspire plenty to do just that.
Stay tuned to NME.com/C25 for more on the return of the iconic mixtape