Welcome, K-poppers! We all have heard the latest trending news: a rookie group named “Enhypen” just debuted under the label of bighit entertainment. and fans worldwide are already celebrating the accomplishment and shining potential of this boy band, colouring the uncoloured world with their beautiful bright colours together; like a rainbow.
So my fellow ENGENE! let’s dive into the lake of amazing facts about this rookie group, I have tried my best to gather every possible information for my K-Pop lovers about Enhypen! So here we go.
What is Enhypen?
Enhypen is a South Korean boy band formed by Belift Lab, a joint venture between CJ E&M & Bighit Entertainment.
This teenage boy group has formed through a hit K- Pop survival reality show “I-Land” in 2020, that just culminated on September 18 with world’s biggest boy band “BTS” and TXT, these megastars came to enlighten and encouraged these little pupils for their brightest future as K-Pop idols.
Enhypen consists of 7 band members:
Heeseung, Jay, Jake, Sunghoon, Sunoo, Jungwon, and Ni-ki. The septet was introduced through live-broadcast on the finale of I-Land, talented boys survived and debuted as a band on November 30, 2020, with an extended play Border: Day one.
Meaning of the name “Enhypen”
Enhypen got its name from symbol Hyphen (-), that creates beautiful meanings like “Connection, Discovery, and Growth”, which is the basic moto of this boy group, ENHYPEN aims “to come together to connect, discover and grow together to create a new act.” Which further implies seven different boys from totally different worlds came together and connect to discover one another and grow together. They are ambitious to unite people and this world through their soulful music.
History
Two famous entertainment agencies of South Korea CJ E&M and Big Hit Entertainment together co-founded Belift Lab in March 2020, with plans of creating a new boy band. The Notion of forging a new group made K-pop enthusiasts crazy, Auditions commenced worldwide (Seoul, The United States, Taiwan, Japan and more) for male trainees, boys born between 1997 to 2008 were eligible for the auditions. These trials to show mastery in their skills, to dugout deserving aspirants for the show.
Korean TV channel Mnet declared openly the survival competition show, ‘I-Land’ on May 8, 2020. This reality survival series was a venture of both entertainment companies that “follows the process of next-generation K-pop artists being born”.
I-Land featured 23 male trainees, some got selected from Belift auditions while others were transferred from BigHit Entertainment, all 23 together were equipped under Belift Lab. These trained pupils were featured on I-Land survival show, which was aired on Mnet every week from June 26 to September 18, 2020. This show was worldwide broadcasted through BigHit Entertainment’s Youtube channel.
The competition had two parts, 12 competitors from the first fraction made it to the final part.
Seven members were selected out from the rest of adversaries – six being chosen by the fans votes globally and seventh by the producer’s choice.
The newly made group debuted with seven young and talented men
Heeseung, Jay, Jake, Sunghoon, Sunoo, Jungwon and Ni-ki with new hopes and energy.
Septet immediately moved in a dormitory together, recorded their debut EP, had lessons from famous choreographers, shot their First Music Video, filmed a reality show, had various interviews, promoted their EP, BROKE A FIRST-WEEK SALES RECORD, performed on one of KOREA’s BIGGEST YEAR-END AWARDS SHOWS and won ” ROOKIE OF THE YEAR”.
United by small epiphanies, ENHYPEN is now defining their own stories and music with their first EP BORDER: DAY ONE. The band is exploring a wide range of genres while tussling with a new reputation as an emerging global idol group. There very first album’s lead single, “Given-Taken, is a high-energy rock and roll pop song with mesmerising vocals and energetic dance moves, adding fuel to the sizzling spicy symphony, lyrics of the song implies the mental struggle of new idols. Through ” Given-Taken” ENHYPEN (Jay, Ni-Ki, Jake, Heeseung, Park Sunghoon, Jungwon and Sunoo) wants to express their feelings about their newly found stardom; the idea of Vocalist following his dreams overcoming all impediments. The song talks about the artist’s ‘Do or die’ situations where idol life and growing fame is taking singer into the ‘Sky’. This track was officially released on 30 November 2020 and has achieved more than 300,000 preorders for their first single.
Jungwon
Jungwon is a leader of the ENHYPEN, this 16-year-old leader is a reliable teammate and consistent performer. A boy who has “mesmerizing allure” and ability to communicate the nuances of the song’s meaning makes him different from his teammates. His zeal and energy met everywhere with conspicuous success which made him stand above all the other members. His caring and supportive personality have earned him love and trust from his teammates, who have chosen him as their leader.
“It’s a challenge for me to let go of the pressure. I’m just grateful for the members who have shown trust in me and followed my lead. I look up to RM of BTS because I think he is a good leader and there is a lot to learn from his way of listening to team his members and resolving conflicts; a shield to protect his team from negativity.”
Jungwon was a taekwondo player and had competed in Korea’s national sport, he has learned refinement, morality, endurance, self-control and unconquerable passion from his sport and still has heart-winning sporty nature “the manners and self-control that I learnt from Taekwondo helped in the entire process of the debut.”
Lee Heeseung
The oldest member of the group. Heeseung is the most experienced member and chosen as ‘the core of every performance’. He is considered as ‘ace’ among I-Landies due to his perfect skills in singing, dancing and his visuals. He is very creative and productive, his adaptive and supportive nature makes him everyone’s favourite.
“We should build leadership together as a team. Each member of the team has to have leadership and take action to help that role, not just with words but really to help the leader out for the whole team to succeed.”
Heeddueng was a trainee with the longest training period among his fellows mates, he did his training with the bighit entertainment for over three years and was trained alongside TXT members before their debut.
JAY
Park Jong Seong aka Jay is known for his amazing dance skills among I-LAND apprentices, despite having admirable dancing skills he had gloomy outlook towards his abilities,
He’s been a trainee for few years and had learned to control his scepticism, embarrassing moments and frustration.
Jay is known as ‘Angry bird’ among his comrades due to his explosive energy and tension maker personality.
Not only a great dancer Jay is the best culinarian and used to cook for his I-Land members. Jay wanted to be a chef when he was young, along with cooking this angry bird is a gastronome as well.
JAKE
From Australian high school to the winner of one of the biggest survival show in K-Pop history, Jake Sim made his way into the K-pop world. Since his childhood, Jaeyoon was more of an athlete than a performer. He was a good soccer player but despite his athleticism, music has always yanked him.
Again, Jake is a great violist as well.
Jake’s dream to become an idol from an athlete drastically shifted in November 2017. When young 15 years old Jake saw a mind-blowing performance: BTS’ DNA on American Music Awards, BTS left him speechless and shocked, he got inspired by them, BTS’ energy and vibes drove him crazy and it was then Jake decided to follow his idols and wanted to be a megastar on stage with crazy fans just like BTS.
And, Jake worked hard constantly for his dreams, hoping against hope for a miracle, as he rehearsed, cheered, and hustled with unbridled enthusiasm. And it was then Universe rearranged his life paths towards BTS.
Jake is known for the alluring voice behind the narration of ENHYPEN’s debut and concept trailers so far.
Sunghoon
One of the finest dancers of ENHYPEN, his ability to pick up choreography promptly makes him a most equipped dancer.
Sunghoon is known as ‘Ice Prince, visual #1’ by his fellow Enhypen mates. Lately, he was a competitive ice skater and had participated in both national and international competitions and his professional background in ice skating earned him an edge over other competitors of I-Land when it comes to certain moves.
Sung-hoon is the junior silver medalist (2016, 2017) of Asian Figure Skating Trophy, South Korean Figure Skating Championship for year’s 2013, 2014, and in 2015 novice Gold medalist of Asian Figure Skating Trophy and Lombardia Trophy.
His Idol life
His story of becoming Idol is way too similar to Jake, he too had dreamt of becoming successful Ice skater but Sunghoon’s dream from ice skater to an idol changed when he saw BTS live CONCERT. He was astonished after seeing the power BTS have and how perfectly perfect they are. It was only after watching BTS, former competitive skater felt inspired and he decided to work hard to be a successful idol just like BTS.
Sunoo
Aegyo master sunoo was specially chosen by the producers of I-LAND and industry insiders including BIG HIT’s CEO ‘Bang Si-Hyuk‘ as the seventh member of ENHYPEN. Sunoo is the visual centre of the boy group due to his adorable and cute fox-like visuals and charming personality he’s been called as ‘Aegyo prince’ and ‘desert fox’ among his fellow I-Landies. This bright and energetic boy had a tragic past that nearly stopped him from fulfilling his dream and becoming an idol. Sunoo had major health issues since he was young and had to undergo surgery, so idol training has been physically tough for him.
Though he hides all his pain beautifully, he doesn’t like being a burden and worry his fellow members during practices.
Despite his illness, Sunoo proved himself to be an important member of his band and is winning the hearts of his fans with his charms and loveable energy.
Ni-Ki
The youngest member of ENHYPEN, 14-year old Ni-Ki is one of the top dancers on I-Land. When it comes to dancing; talent, technique, tenacity are just possessed him, dance has always been his priority over anything from the start, his alluring dancing skills and powerful expressions have impressed the audience and judges. Ni-Ki’s amazing dances moves and his love for dance has earned him names like ‘Super dancer’ and ‘Little Michael Jackson’ from his fellow dancers, Ni-Ki has a strong dancing background, he revealed that family is also indulged in dance and they even run their dance studio where he has grown up learning dance. Youngest has worked hard for his dream to be an amazing dancer. According to his teammates, Ni-Ki’s most precious item is his ‘pair of dance shoes’.
Though he has mastered his dancing skills but has received some criticism from the makers for his uncertain and shaky voice. Creators and trainers continued to look towards him as beautiful dancers rather than a complete performer. He was often asked to help the other trainees memorize choreography for the test.
Not only this Ni-Ki had faced linguistic challenges, other than his idol training he was expected to learn Korean for future endeavours in K-Pop world.
What is ENGENE?
ENGENE is ENHYPEN’s official fandom name, which symbolises the strongest fans the power the engine to drive and support ENHYPEN’s growth. ENGENE is made up of two words ‘EN + GENE’, where ‘EN’ refers to ENHYPEN and ‘GENE’ refers to DNA, they believe their fans sharing the same DNA as the group to connect and grow together beautifully.
Where can you follow ENHYPEN?
if you are new to K-Pop and interested in the boys, you can follow this band on
( @ENHYPEN_members )
( @enhypen )
YouTube
( Enhypen )
TikTok
( Enhypen)
VLIVE
( Enhypen )
and you can also download ‘WEVERSE’ app to join the group’s official fan community and purchase merchandise on Weverse Shop.
Kollosal THyst 