Stray Kids HYUNJIN W Korea September 2026 Interview | Full English Translation

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W Korea: The response from fans to Run It Seoul, the opening of this world tour, has been especially positive. It seems they could feel that both the setlist and the structure of the concert were created with the fans in mind.

Hyunjin: That’s right. I really wanted this world tour to be something entirely for the fans. I wanted to look back at all the songs we’ve released since our pre-debut days and unfold those years again with them.

You brought back songs from throughout your career, but instead of solo or unit stages, the focus remained entirely on the performances of all eight members. How did you come up with such a straightforward approach?

Hyunjin: We had several ideas in the beginning, but eventually we let go of all those other ambitions. I thought that if we didn’t do it now, there might not be another easy opportunity to show the foundation of Stray Kids, that fundamental version of who we are. It’s not the end, of course, but I approached it almost as if it were our last chance and kept asking myself, “How can we tell our story in the best possible way?” Even rehearsing was overwhelming at times. There were songs whose choreography we hadn’t performed in six or seven years, and some felt so unfamiliar that it was almost like learning them again from scratch.

Revisiting those older songs and choreographies must have reminded you, “Right, this is the kind of team we’ve always been.”

Hyunjin: At some point, I think we had moved a little further away from the days when we simply ran forward without caring at all about how other people saw us. I had some regrets about that, and I’m sure each of us had our own sense of desperation back then. But performing those older songs again brought those memories back. I thought, “Right. This is how we used to perform. We just kept running forward without looking anywhere else.”

Was there a certain recklessness at the core of Stray Kids?

Hyunjin: There was recklessness, and there was rebelliousness too. “Step Out” has been our slogan since debut. From the very beginning, we were a team with a strong determination not to move only within structures and processes that already existed. Back then, we tried so many things that made people say, “They’re releasing music like this?” or “They’re actually doing a performance like that?” We weren’t a group that started out under the spotlight, so we were incredibly hungry. We wanted to stand out somehow, to be noticed, and that made us push things even more boldly. There were plenty of moments when even we wondered, “Is this actually right?” We definitely wanted to be different from everyone else, but we didn’t know whether that difference would really work. It wasn’t as though people responded immediately either.

But now that we’ve gone back and performed that older music and choreography again, none of it feels outdated or uncool. That makes me proud. We weren’t simply chasing whatever happened to be popular at the time. We were thinking about music that felt like us and about what came next.

During the concert, you said you had been worried because you felt you hadn’t shown enough earlier this year. Even after proving so much already, does that anxiety remain?

Hyunjin: I want to be number one. Whatever I do, I’m very competitive.

Of course, you can’t reduce all of this to simply winning or losing. But during the first half of the year, even though we were doing so much behind the scenes preparing the album and the concerts, there was hardly anything we could actually show the fans.

I have a phone too, so naturally I see other groups promoting. They look so fresh and youthful, and sometimes I think, “We used to be like that too.” At the same time, it makes me wonder, “Have we already been doing this for that long?”

That was another reason I prepared for this concert with so much care. I wanted to show that Stray Kids are still very much here, and that we’re still more than strong enough.

Five concerts in a single city, every one completely sold out. Isn’t that already proof enough?

Hyunjin: Things like that don’t really hit me in the same way. How many tickets we sold or how big the world tour is matters less to me than the fact that I simply wanted to see the fans again after such a long time. There are some things you can only understand when you experience them firsthand. I think I’m probably going to live like this forever. I’m doomed, seriously. (laughs) Even during my final comments at the concert, I said, “I’m doomed.”

I think I’ve become addicted to the dopamine of stepping onto a stage. I’m so happy after performing. I almost never get home after a concert and feel empty. The size of the stage doesn’t matter either. I just need to perform well. What matters isn’t where I performed, but how well I performed there.

Some people might advise you that it’s time to expand further or show a completely new side of yourself. What do you think when you hear things like that?

Hyunjin: I don’t think we necessarily need to expand, and I don’t particularly want to either. My dream isn’t to become a superstar. I just want Stray Kids, as a team, to continue being recognized. That’s enough for me. I think it’s much cooler if people can continue to look at us and say, “Stray Kids are still Stray Kids.” The core of Stray Kids isn’t something that can be exchanged for anything else. It’s not really about comparing ourselves with anyone. It’s closer to the feeling of, “We are simply us.” I believe there are things inside us that cannot be taken away in the first place, things no one else can possess.

Doesn’t that also make you want to do everything perfectly? In creative work, unexpected things can sometimes emerge only after you let go of perfection.

Hyunjin: I think if you keep adding layer after layer because you’re trying to make something perfect, you can actually end up ruining it. I used to want to be perfect. But the more I tried to reach that perfection, the more rigid I became. It was the same with music, dance, and painting. What we do is ultimately about communicating emotion to people, and the phrase “perfect emotion” itself feels contradictory to me.

Rather than delivering something with absolutely no margin for error, like AI, I think a rough emotion that carries honest feeling exactly as it is can resonate more deeply. Even when I’m choosing my words, if I try too hard to communicate exactly what’s in my heart, I can become stiff and cold. Even if it’s a little loose around the edges, I want the emotion itself to come through 100 percent. That’s closer to what I consider art. There’s definitely something that can only be communicated when a small imperfection remains.

Expressing emotion ultimately requires looking into your own heart. But looking deeply into yourself can’t always be comfortable. Has that process ever made things difficult for you?

Hyunjin: These days, I think of it as “taking care” of my emotions. In the past, I would dig deep, asking myself, “What am I really feeling? What is truly in my heart?” Now, if my mind feels a little messy, it’s more like picking things up one by one, cleaning them, and putting them back where they belong.

Before, looking into my heart was like opening every drawer in a room and emptying everything onto the floor. Now, I’m putting those things back in order one at a time. There was a time when I thought real art meant somehow exposing even the parts of myself I desperately didn’t want anyone to see, reaching all the way into the deepest place inside me and pulling everything out. 

These days, though, I feel like I can express enough through whatever I’m feeling in the present without forcing myself to go painfully deep every time. This is probably the most stable period I’ve had. A lot of things are working together well, and my mind feels pretty well settled.

Let’s talk about another important part of who you are: art. W Korea is putting a major focus on art this month. We’ll also be featuring interviews with artists including Lee Bae, KAWS, and Ho Tzu Nyen, an artist and the artistic director of the Gwangju Biennale.

Hyunjin: Wow. Then I’m not answering. I don’t want to talk about art anymore. (laughs)

Why not? You can simply talk about what you love. Until recently, Mark Rothko was one of your biggest passions, right?

Hyunjin: I think I’ll love Mark Rothko forever. Forever. But my taste has changed a little. These days, I feel like there’s almost nothing more incredible than installation art. I love seeing things that seem to have been placed down roughly and instinctively. I used to be someone who believed that aesthetic beauty belonged inside the canvas. But after seeing more work that exists outside the canvas, there were moments when the canvas itself actually started to feel distant to me. 

I recently visited Centre Pompidou Hanwha. I’d never had a particularly strong attachment to Cubist artists, but I discovered a taste I hadn’t expected to have. From there, I naturally became interested in Magritte as well. They were already imagining those unreal compositions and images in their heads and turning them into artworks long before AI existed. When I look at the grotesque or surreal images that AI produces today, I sometimes think, “These kinds of images didn’t suddenly appear out of nowhere.”

You also make time to visit art fairs, don’t you? There’s a particular pleasure in viewing art that you can only experience at a fair.

Hyunjin: Exactly. You can encounter a wider range of works there than almost anywhere else, and at fairs, you also get to meet contemporary artists in person. Over the past couple of years, I’ve become just as curious about the person behind the work as I am about the work itself. Hearing an artist you happen to meet at a fair talk about their work in person is completely different from reading their words in a text. I love watching the entire process, the excitement they feel when talking about their own work, and the happiness on their face when they get to share their story with someone.

Hearing the thoughts of creators living and working in the same era as me helps me too. If you only surround yourself with classical works, there are times when you can start to feel as though you’ve stopped moving.

Do you remember the first moment your heart truly opened to art? Was there a particular work that sent you in a completely different direction?

Hyunjin: It was Monet. At first, it was simply the beauty that drew me in. I especially felt that way when I saw the Haystacks. There’s no explanation in those works. Even the shadows are expressed through complementary colors. I could talk about Impressionism forever. (laughs) But once I learned about the circumstances that led to the birth of Impressionism, I loved it even more. With the invention of the camera, reproducing the world exactly as it appeared was no longer as important as it had been before. And once paint became available in tubes, artists were able to go outside and paint.

William Turner, whom Monet admired, is also a painter I love very much. Once I started learning all these interconnected stories one by one, it became impossible for me not to love Monet. At the time, those paintings must have seemed incredibly new and unfamiliar. Imagine how much criticism and dismissal they must have faced. But eventually, they became an entire movement. And with time, they became works that everyone now calls beautiful.

There’s also something wistful and lonely about Turner’s work and Monet’s Haystacks. It seems you’re naturally drawn to that kind of emotion.

Hyunjin:I tend to like people I can’t help worrying about a little. You meet someone, and then you notice one small flaw or vulnerable part of them. Once I see that, I end up loving that person. What am I supposed to do? I even want to put a pain-relief patch on them. (laughs) That’s why when I get to know someone, I try to have at least one genuinely deep conversation with them. I don’t want to meet people only on a superficial level. As we talk like that, I think I gradually come to care for them more and eventually love them.

I imagine a lot of people around you come to you with their problems.

Hyunjin: I’m a healer. A healer. (laughs) I actually really enjoy listening to people’s worries. If someone tells me what they’re struggling with, it means I’m someone they can lean on. And that doesn’t feel like a burden to me. In fact, when I listen to someone, it makes me think again too. I’ll find myself realizing, “Oh, you could look at it that way as well.” I don’t necessarily have to give them an answer. I’m perfectly happy just listening. Although, ironically, I’m not very good at talking about myself. (laughs)

 

Shall we wrap up? If you stripped away everything we’ve talked about so far, the music, the stage, the paintings, and only one person named “Hwang Hyunjin” remained, what kind of person would you like to be from here on?

Hyunjin: That’s actually the biggest question on my mind these days. I’ve already lived as a member of Stray Kids for about nine years. It has taken up nearly half of my life, so it’s become difficult to separate that life from who I am. I don’t think there’s a separate person called “Hwang Hyunjin the human being.” All of these different sides are me. Maybe I’ll live in another way someday, or try another kind of life too. I really intend to have fun with my life. So rather than being afraid of the future, I’m actually excited about it. I keep wondering just how much more thrilling my life might become.

 

Are you finding little moments to enjoy the summer as it comes to an end?

Hyunjin:Even between concerts, I keep making time for the things I love. I painted yesterday too. I also bought this small, adorable original vintage desk by a French designer I like. I put a Charlotte Perriand stool with it, and yesterday I painted my first picture at that beautiful desk.

 

You seem to be making very good use of your own time.

Hyunjin: I never waste a day. Ever. (laughs)

 

There’s some romance in your life too.

Hyunjin:Oh, I can’t live without romance. Absolutely not.