Seoul, South Korea · k-pop · hip hop

Stray Kids

1 upcoming festival

K-pop's most self-produced group — noisy, maximalist records written and arranged largely in-house, stadium-scale chaos by design.

Stray Kids formed in Seoul through a 2017 survival programme run by JYP Entertainment, and debuted the following year. Their material is largely written and produced in-house by the internal team 3RACHA, made up of Bang Chan, Changbin and Han, which is unusual among groups of their scale and generation.

The sound leans on hard-edged hip hop and electronic production, with abrupt tempo changes, heavy low end and shouted group vocals sitting alongside more conventional pop melodies. They are associated with the fourth generation of K-pop groups, and their live performances are built around dense choreography and the same maximalist arrangements found on record.

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