LIFE OF A DJ IN LOCKDOWN - baseline presents: DJ HYO

Kim Hyo-yeon referred to as Hyoyeon or DJ Hyo, is a singer, dancer, television personality, and DJ from South Korea. Hyoyeon started in the music industry as a member of the South Korean pop group Girls’ Generation in 2007. Hyoyeon’s career mainly centered around pop music, dance, and reality television, until 2015 when she first competed as a DJ on a larger platform on the show Mash-Up. Her solo career started the next year with the release of “Mystery.”

But it was in April 2018 when Hyoyeon released the single “Sober” under the new moniker DJ Hyo with S.M. Entertainment’s dance music label Scream Records. Since then she has been involved with the pop group Girls Generation Oh! GG, and the reality show “Good Girl” along with promoting as a DJ at Clubs and EDM Festivals. Last Thursday she appeared on the South Korean show “Radio Star'' and spoke about her work as a DJ during a time of social distancing amidst the coronavirus pandemic.

“I was invited by the Taiwanese government for a major event,” she said. “But on the morning of the event, a variant case of COVID-19 was confirmed in Taiwan and the event was changed to be no longer in-person. I did some DJ-ing there and performed my song ‘Dessert.’”

As of February 2, Taiwan has 915 active covid cases and 8 deaths to date.

Hyoyeon’s single “Dessert” was released July 7 and has amassed 38 million views on Youtube. The song is produced with a tangle of synths forming in the silky effortless sounding verses which drop down into a chorus dripping with edge and sass.

On “Radio Star.” Hyoyeon discussed potentially refocusing her career to become a full-time DJ, rather than splitting her time between being a television personality, pop singer, and DJ. She messaged the founder of S.M. Entertainment Lee Soo Man saying, “I showed him that I have a lot of passion for this work, and I got my own team at SM Entertainment.”

Although the pandemic has done a lot to slow down the music industry it looks as if the future will be seeing a lot more of DJ Hyo.