Spotify’s Radar Artist, hongjoin on his latest single “hollow”

By Yvonne Morales

MAY 29, 2025

Bringing clarity to the chaos and absurdity of life, hongjoin is an emerging musical artist who transforms life’s inevitable sentiments into introspective groovy and cinematic soundscapes shaped by his world.

Raised in Singapore, his early days were filled with writing poems and journaling, leading him to soon pick up a guitar at the age of 16. Not knowing such moments of creativity as well as emotional depth would one day define his music, hongjoin’s seeds of expression soon took shape into a world of melodic storytelling. 

Hongjoin’s musical awakening occurred during his mandatory two-year military service in Singapore that begins when a male turns 18, creating a catalyst for his artistic evolution. While finding himself serving his country, he taught himself music production, turning confinement into creation. Years later, hongjoin now finds himself inviting his listeners to embark on inner exploration to embrace one’s emotions, “My music is introspective. It might make you happy cry,” he shares. “It helps you appreciate the love around you — that’s a theme in everything I write.” 

After realizing music became a way to cope with life, love and the absence of love especially, hongjoin started sharing songs later connecting with people who resonated with his music, further, kickstarting what he would later know as his music career. “During that time, I started posting hobby covers on YouTube and got into production [inspired by DIY artists like Jeremy Zucker and Dayglow], I wanted to try it for myself — and one thing led to another,” adds hongjoin.

After moving to America, he fell  in love with music all over again, and released original tracks which led hongjoin to be selected as one of Spotify’s RADAR artists. This instance altered the trajectory of his music career. With three albums released, each album marked a chapter in his life full of sound that spans across multiple genres and emotions. Each one embodies his encounters with heartbreak, the feelings of moving away from home and being alone, all leading to newly found love and relationships, his albums are diary entries of his life. 

His latest single “hollow” reveals the hidden layers of growing up. With lyrics introspecting on where he finds himself in life currently compared to those around him, his newest single truly showcases the raw disposition of feeling left behind. “Hollow”, written in an attic with his friend Doug Suh at 3AM started with a melody in his head, and the dreaded realization of his friends and everyone around him moving on. A moment that soon led to their first collaboration after three years of working on music together, bringing to life a unique glitchy textural blend of electronic and pop sound. After making a beat with Doug, the premise of  feeling left behind led to thoughts like  “...life sucks sometimes. What am I doing? Everyone else seems to be doing so much. Life moves fast. People move on without you.” reminisces hongjoin.“hollow”’s upbeat melody, yet sorrowful and thought provoking lyrics are not the first time hongjoin challenges the beat of the song juxtaposing its meaning. “I often write upbeat tracks with sad lyrics. It's like: should I dance, or should I cry?”.

Although expressing not knowing where he finds himself in life yet, his single’s melody and production shows the experimental time he finds himself in with his sound, as he mentions “I wanted to write a song that wasn’t just about love or romantic relationships. This one is different. It's not just the production — it's the message. It's more electric than acoustic, too.” hongjoin also notes his creative process as a huge role in every song he writes and produces, letting us know that  his music illustrates phases of his life as he says, “If I’m not feeling it, I can’t write it. I can only write when something happens to me…it might not be who I am now, but it’s who I was.”

Throughout his journey as an artist, hongjoin takes pride in  the DIY process of being an artist, a mindset and skill that contributes to his recording, production, and mixing of all of his tracks. Currently, hongjoin is working on a fourth album, as he celebrates graduating from college, and looks forward to moving to NYC.  

Hongjoin’s music conveys his joy and sense of camaraderie, and that feeling of having a friend who validates your feelings. That’s why he leaves  us with the message, “If you're confused like I am — about growing up, moving on — or if you're a hopeless romantic, this music is for you. And if you ever come to a show, I promise it's a party.”