Babebee, pronounced “baby,” the musical moniker of the elusive, Korean American artist (they/them pronouns), is an idiosyncratic soloist who could only exist now, in the modern era: prolific, collaborative, convention-breaking, endlessly ambitious, and impossible to define. Call them hyperpop, and you’d miss out on their experimental dance signatures, their penchant for bedroom pop melodicism. Call them a singer and you miss out on their expert production work. Call them unconventional, and you’re closer to the truth: it’s the reason you might’ve caught them on Twitch, or on their Discord community, The Honeypot, or featured on a series of all-star Spotify playlists, including New Music Friday, the official hyperpop playlist, and Lorem, with its nearly one million likes. It’s also the reason Pigeons and Planes/Complex was quick to name them a best new artist.

Babebee—you can also call them ‘Bee’ for short—like many Internet artists who place their musicianship at the center of their identity, keep their birth name a mystery. But unlike their contemporaries, naming has been an ongoing source of inspiration and conflict for Bee—a confluence of their Korean, American, and public identities—a fluidity that mirrors the creative evolutions of their music. When they started this project in 2020, after many years and many other names, they were experiencing an existential crisis long before the pandemic brought one upon all of us (prescience is a theme in their work). Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.