XngHan&Xoul: The remaking of a K-pop idol

For 21-year-old XngHan (Hong Seunghan), his love of music and performance began when he was a small child. “By middle school, I knew there was nothing else but music for me,” he says over Zoom from a white corner of a room within SM Entertainment in Seoul. It’s flooded with daylight, making the outlines of his backwards-turned black cap, black jacket, and dark brows more sharply pronounced. “I knew that I was going to be in this business and I would do a good job of it, and that determination hasn’t changed,” XngHan adds. “I don’t think it ever will.” 

This is a common standpoint for K-pop idols, who usually begin their training as teenagers, their lack of life experience at stark odds with the steely ambition that will help them to beat out dozens of fellow trainees, and debut. But this sentiment borders on profound, coming from XngHan following a 20-month hiatus after a series of leaked photos showed evidence of a romantic relationship prior to debut. During that time, however, he’s been one of K-pop’s most debated idols. An unwitting poster boy in fandom spaces, held up as an example by those who believe idols have the right to a visible (should they choose it to be) personal life – generally regarded to encompass activities like dating or clubbing – but, equally, by those who see such actions as irresponsible, marring the socially conscientious, fan-devoted idol image.

XngHan and I talk one week out from the drop of his two-track ‘single album’ (as it’s known in K-pop), which makes it nine months since it was announced he’d return to RIIZE (the group he debuted with), a decision reversed due to fan backlash, and eight months since the announcement that he’d continue as a soloist. It’s my first time meeting XngHan, though I’ve followed the enduring vortex of fan and media conversation around him, and maybe because of this – two years immersed in thousands of desperately positive and outrageously negative takes, of debates over cultural context and fruitless arguments around fan behaviour – that I imagine he might be polite but distant, with a gaze that verges on wary. 

Nervousness causes his hands to fidget, but he’s warm and attentive, with fine-boned features and a calming tone of voice. Look into his eyes for long enough and you’ll glimpse the impishness of yore, though circumstance might well have tempered and matured it. He looks exactly as he does on his Instagram – casually dressed and makeup-free – where he’s been going live semi-regularly of late. In them, XngHan always looks happy, and it turns out that he really is happy. 

Sometimes his Instagram Lives feature Jang Yul and Kyo Hong, two established K-pop dancers he recruited via Instagram, and whom he affectionately refers to as his “crew”. Though technically a soloist, his new era is a collaborative one, dubbed XngHan&Xoul. “Because I like trying new things, I thought it’d be great to have a crew. If you have a crew, you have more new things to bring to the table, hence I created Xoul,” XngHan says. “My first priority [in finding collaborators] was sharing a passion for dance, and the second thing I wanted was for them to be around my age, because when we’re the same generation we think and ponder about the same things.” 

As for the switch on his own name, it began simply enough – “If I use ‘X’ instead, I can make it more brief but also kinda cool” – then gained momentum to “symbolise a lot of things; it could mean the unknown variable in a mathematical formula and also the infinity of possibilities and potential,” XngHan says.

It’s intimidating to be at the precipice of one’s career, more so when you’re aware there are many who’d like to see you fail. But XngHan is assured and decisive. “I’m an ISTP,” he says, by way of explanation, the same way someone might say, “It’s because I’m a Libra” (which he also is). Whether or not you ascribe to the validity of online psychology tests, Briggs-Myer’s MBTI, which sorts you into one of 16 personalities, has gripped South Koreans who’ve been known to use it for assessing the compatibility of new friends and partners. “On MBTI, everyone is either a T or an F, Thinking or Feeling. More logical or more emotional, and I’m 100 per cent a T. This is my forte but also a limitation,” he acknowledges.

According to the test, the ISTP is diligent and autonomous. They like to live in the present and communicate without sugarcoating things, which is perhaps why there’s no big talk from him, the kind of chest-beating bluster that some people deploy when they’re about to take the most challenging leap of their lives. He’s consistent with it, too, his new music swerving the supercharged extravagance and bombast that K-pop has favoured over the years. 

During his first idol incarnation, XngHan was known for his dancing and he’s made sure the single “Waste No Time” and its flipside, “Heavenly Blue”, are fine canvases for his fast, fluid dance style, their instrumentals tugging skywards like helium balloons. But where fans guessed he’d veer towards R&B, his songs are veritable water sprites, light, free and playful pop, his voice genuinely joyous as it whips and prances across the syllables.

XngHan was one of the three lyricists on “Heavenly Blue” (and created its choreography alongside Xoul), turning a colour more frequently associated with heartbreak into something optimistic for himself. “Blue is my favourite colour,” he says. “I don’t tend to associate it with darkness or sadness, I think it’s a very invigorating colour and, as ‘heavenly’ is also a very positive word, ‘Heavenly Blue’ means something very cool and refreshing to me.”

There’s a poignancy present, though, if you’re inclined to feel it out under the tootling trumpet and summery cascades of falsetto. On the first verse of “Waste No Time”, he sings: “A madness in these familiar steps / A Möbius strip, endlessly looping all night long / Flowers crushed on the chosen path / You slow down, not finding the right answer”. XngHan blinks, cat-like, musing: “What I felt the most was excitement for what’s ahead, that prevailed over everything else when I was recording, and even now.”

But he concedes that “Waste No Time” is two-sided – a goodbye to his dark days and a hello to the clear skies of today and the next. “You’re on point, that’s exactly what I wanted to convey, so I’m happy you felt that way,” XngHan says. “This is all about having a new mindset and standing on a new starting point. I think it’s going to have an impact for people who are also facing a new challenge, and I hope this song can ground them and propel them.”

I’m not someone who gets disturbed by every little thing and I’m not a person with a lot of mood swings… [But] I’m grateful people were rooting for me

That starting point he speaks of has taken a long time to reach. XngHan’s story, if you’re unfamiliar with its finer details, could be described in simple terms as a line of slow toppling dominoes. Having written a public apology following the leak of his pre-debut photos, which appeared less than two weeks before RIIZE’s debut single, the band debuted as planned on September 4th, 2023. But in October, another image surfaced (taken from a private Instagram Live), and in November, conversations from a different private chat room were leaked, as well as alleged footage of him smoking. By then, a firestorm that couldn’t be stamped out, XngHan went on an indefinite hiatus on November 22. 

This caused the band’s fans to butt heads. International fans, in particular, came to his defense – XngHan had done nothing illegal or even beyond the realm of the average teenage experience – but the complicated, passionate, and intense fan/idol relationship is quick to blossom and easy to fracture, so while the band carried on with their scheduled activities and XngHan’s supporters began to campaign to have him reinstated, XngHan did what he felt needed to do, and vanished from public view. 

“I knew there were mixed reactions,” he says, rubbing his chin awkwardly, pressing his fingers into one cheek. “But I also want to say that I’m truly grateful to the fans who have given me unwavering support.” He went home, moving back in with his mother and father. “They’re not very talkative,” XngHan says with the tiniest of smiles. “They were like, ‘Oh, you’re back’, and they didn’t really give me a lot of advice or bother me. I tried to keep things off my mind because I had to kind of let things pass, I had to [still] live my life. I would go to my room and listen to a lot of music. I’d try to keep my routine very simple. That’s how I was trying to live those days.” 

He made his days regimented. “I have a park in front of my home, so I loved to go running there, then I’d go to the gym and work out. I’d work on my lyric writing and composition. I kept trying things for self-improvement and, compared to then, I now have more power and stamina.” 

XngHan doesn’t have to think too hard to recall those early days and weeks, they’re indelibly etched on his brain, but he unspools his memories carefully and matter-of-factly. Though a pragmatist by nature, he found himself staring into a global maelstrom of heightened emotions, theories, and conspiracies which were gripping fans and non-fans alike. His name was on everyone’s lips. He had two options – stay plugged in to the chaos or step back and recalibrate. “I tried not to look at the reactions online, especially in the beginning,” he says. “I had to give myself some space and clear my mind, to use this time to work on myself.” 

He kept a low, almost invisible, profile but as the hiatus dragged on with no official communications or updates, fans began to demand answers. Was he in or was he out? They got their reply on October 11, 2024, nearly eleven months after his hiatus began, when it was announced that XngHan would rejoin the band in November. What was celebrated by his fans was met with waves of hostility by those who maintained that he’d had his chance at idol-dom and blown it. 

The latter camp protested, not just with the usual tidal wave of online comments but by sending hundreds upon hundreds of traditional Korean funeral wreaths – large standing flower arrangements with messages printed on ribbons – to SM Entertainment. Two days after the reinstatement announcement, on October 13, XngHan wrote to fans of his decision to leave RIIZE, this time permanently. 

Understandably, no one was too sure if XngHan wanted to do, or was ready for, this interview, but he said yes, yes to drawing a definitive line in the sand, and perhaps the possibility of his new start bearing a little less shadow of what was. XngHan fiddles with his jacket and points at his chest: “I have a healthier body these days, and I think I have a healthier mind at the same time, too.” 

There are moments from the past two years that remain off-limits to discussion, but XngHan describes the end to his time in an idol band as feeling “not really like I was on an emotional rollercoaster ride but more like being in a car driving on a road”, despite how it looked to everyone on the outside looking in. He considers himself balanced and cool of composure – ”I’m not someone who gets disturbed by every little thing and I’m not a person with a lot of mood swings,” he notes – but still, “I was just so thankful that there were people rooting for me. I knew, again, there was that diverse mix of reactions, so I talked with the company and came to a decision that was best for all. And I do think that it was the best thing,” he says, his voice fading just a little.

I don’t think I’m going to be going back and forth between genres in the immediate future. I’m always opening up doors for exploration

What happens next for Hong Seunghan, and for XngHan&Xoul is, for the first time in a long time, far more in his control. In terms of setting goals, he’s inclined to “go hard on myself as a professional artist” but he’s also visibly bewitched with this new avenue through which to create art, whereby he can do something as small, personal and pleasurable as creating pin badges for his crew (a dancing figure with wings that form an ‘X’ shape) but as significant and high stakes as choreographing for, and writing on, his releases. 

He’s brimming with inspiration but acknowledges that “a lot of my ideas spring from talking with people in SM Entertainment, we have many amazing people here, so we brainstorm a lot. And also with Xoul, when we’re eating or just hanging out, we toss around a lot of ideas.” And as exciting and fresh as everything is, he’s keen to employ a certain deliberateness to his work. “I don’t want listeners to be confused regarding what I’m giving them as a soloist,” XngHan muses, “so I don’t think I’m going to be going back and forth between genres in the immediate future. I’m always opening up doors for exploration, like maybe making band music and creating a band with Xoul, but I really want to be able to have consistency.” 

Talking like this, where he’s already mentally skimming towards the future, he suddenly catches himself. If there’s one thing XngHan has learned and had to learn to do well, it’s to live in the moment, to just be. He knows who he is, and what he is: “Strong,” he says nodding. “Healthy.” He pauses, folds his arms, and laughs. “And crazy for music.”