NCT's TAEYONG steps out solo with 'WYLD'

In three lines.

• NCT's TAEYONG released his solo album 'WYLD' on May 18.
• It's a different grain from the group's stage — a record where his own taste shows through.
• The TAEYONG way of fusing hip-hop and performance carries over here too.

Let's start with the stage.

NCT is a group whose members and units shift depending on the moment, and TAEYONG has long been one of its anchors. A stage full of people is about everyone folding away a little of themselves to fit into one shape, right? A solo turn is the opposite — a place to unfold the taste you'd tucked away. And the longer someone has run with a team, the less often a chance like this comes around. 'WYLD' is close to an album that unfolds that fold.

One step out from the team

The sense you use in a group and the sense you use standing alone are a little different. In a team, the trick is reading the overall flow and slotting your part into its place; solo, you carry the whole song from start to finish on your own. Where to pull the tempo tight and where to let it loose, what tone to open the first line in — there's no one to decide that for you. So what this person tends to like, what kinds of sounds he responds to, just soaks into the track. That's why a solo album can be both a finished piece and something you read like a self-introduction. Before you weigh how polished it is, the first thing that catches your eye is what he most wanted to say. 'WYLD' starts from there too.

TAEYONG as a stage language

Talk about TAEYONG and hip-hop and performance always come up together. The rhythm of his rap and the expression of his moving body don't run separately but stick together as one piece — that's how the stage has explained him all along. 'WYLD' brings that approach into the narrower frame of a solo. With the voices that used to back him up now gone, the grain of his own voice and movement stands out more. If you've been keeping up with the group's stages, there's a fun in measuring how the familiar moves carry over here, and how they change. The 'rough and free' feeling the title points to meshes with the texture of the sound, too.

How to use the empty space

That's the last of the numbers. Now, the music. When someone who used to fill a stage with others stands there alone, the spots that look empty become a card to play instead. In the space left unfilled, the rhythm breathes, and through that gap the voice comes across louder. When you listen to 'WYLD', it's worth following how TAEYONG uses that empty space — where he clears out and where he pushes. What he left behind instead of packing it full: that choice tells you what he wants to say right now. Not being afraid of blank space is also the ease of someone who's stood on a stage for a long time. The TAEYONG of the team is great, but today, let your ears rest a while with the TAEYONG standing alone.