KiHyun

Kihyun, born Yoo Ki-hyun, played a key role in Monsta X's run of four Korean chart-topping albums between 2017 and 2020. His own recordings first surfaced in 2015, the year the group assembled, so the two paths advanced together. While Monsta X leaned heavily into forceful EDM and hip-hop textures, Kihyun's solo output stayed closer to a measured pop approach.

He entered the world in Seoul in November 1993, spent his childhood there with an older brother, and later enrolled at Dong-ah Institute of Media and Arts in Anseong City, Gyeonggi province. The Mnet competition series No Mercy provided his entry point; Starship Entertainment used the program to form the seven-member Monsta X, who debuted with the May 2015 EP Trespass. Kihyun received co-writing credit on the energetic rock-rap cut "No Exit." Before that debut, he had already joined two No Mercy-linked collaborative singles, one of which—the January track "Pillow" with Soyou and Giriboy—entered the Korean Top Five. While promoting Trespass, he shared vocals with groupmate Jooheon on "Attractive Woman," featured in the drama Orange Marmalade. Before 2015 closed, he contributed "One More Step" to the soundtrack of the romantic comedy She Was Pretty.

Monsta X's packed calendar of releases, international tours, and broadcast appearances left Kihyun little room for separate projects. Still, between 2016 and 2021 several of his songs surfaced in Korean television dramas, nearly all of them romantic comedies. The 2018 MBC crime series Partners for Justice offered a departure when it placed the brooding hip-hop and pop track "Can't Breathe," again recorded with Jooheon, in its opening episode. Following Monsta X's 2021 breakthroughs in Japan and the United States with the Japanese-language album Flavors of Love and the English-language album The Dreaming, Starship asked Kihyun to cut a three-track solo EP. Voyager appeared in March 2022; every song on it reached the Top Ten of the U.S. World chart.