YAOCHEN

Blending vibrant dance-pop, forceful rap delivery, and sincere ballad elements, multilingual vocalist Yaochen originates from China. His breakthrough arrived via the 2019 reality competition Produce Comp, which led to membership in boy band R1SE until his complete solo introduction arrived with the 2023 full-length YAOCHEN; the relationship-focused Better with You arrived the following year.

Born in Chongqing, China, he prepared under JYP Entertainment and competed for that label on the Chinese edition of the series, also known as CHUANG 2019. Placing fifth among the initial 100 participants placed him in R1SE, a group he remained with through 2021 while occasionally performing alone, as on the live recording “Save Me Now” alongside bandmate ZHANG YANQI.

Sony issued his first EP, !:EM, in May 2022; it featured the dancefloor-driven melodic rap cut “NEVERMIND,” penned by Stray Kids subunit 3Racha, artists he had met during his trainee period. Following several standalone singles, among them joint releases with Runyu Qian and Li, he returned to Sony for the May 2023 album YAOCHEN and subsequently joined the JYP subsidiary FANLING CULTURE.

Although his earlier material typically combined Mandarin and English, Yaochen ventured into Korean in April 2024 with a translated rendition of the single “TURN UP.” In November he released the four-track Better with You, expanding the project to seven versions once acoustic, EDM, and Korean editions of the title track were added.