Niccijade Reeves-Alhark
Staff Reporter
Eric Nam, a Korean based singer-songwriter, grew up in Atlanta, Georgia. According to an interview he did with Crystal Bell of MTV News, he moved to South Korea to focus on and start his music career, there he participated in the Korean singing competition Star Audition in 2011, which is where he got his big break.
On January 23rd, 2013, Nam made his debut with his first EP, CLOUD 9, with the title song Heaven’s Door. Unlike other K-pop artists, Nam debuted on his own; without a group. It’s common in K-pop culture for an artist to debut in a group, the types of groups are typically boy groups and girl groups, with few exceptions, like the group KARD. It was rare at the time for an idol to debut solo due to K-pop’s performative nature.
Nam continued to make more music in Korean and English, releasing OSTs for K-dramas, EPs, and doing collabs with other artists, Korean and American. In 2019 he released his first fully English album, Before We Begin. The reasoning behind the name of this album is that Nam wanted to separate his U.S. debut from his past K-pop persona, “I didn’t want it to be, this is K-pop Eric. No. I want this to be Eric Nam’s U.S. debut...I didn’t want to define who I was before I even got started. That’s why we named it Before We Begin,” he explains to MTV News. This album was also a departure from his usual at the time, being emotionally deeper than his previous upbeat pop songs.
My favorite song from Before We Begin is Love Die Young. I like this song mainly because of the play on words in the chorus, Nam sings “Please don’t let this love die young” and follows it with “ If I’m gonna lose someone, don’t let it be you” and after a repetition of the first line “If I’m gonna love someone, let it be you” I see it as a fancy way of saying “I love so much omg don’t leave me, please.” It is a very emotional song with deeper meanings that you can look into.
If you decide to start listening to Eric Nam, I would recommend listening to Before We Begin and the singles Cave Me In and Can’t Help Myself. The album can give you a good concept of what to expect from Nam’s English music, along with the collabs he does with other American artists, while Can’t Help Myself can give you a look into what he’s produced while in South Korea.
Nam being the singer-songwriter he is provides more representation for Korean-American artists like him in the K-pop and American music industry. He himself believes that there needs to be representation in music industries, whether it be genres or ethnicities.
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