During a visit to Lawrence to pick up his dog, Jaehun Kim stopped by a Starbucks coffee shop for a hot drink on a chilly evening. His hair was well-groomed, his clothes were casual and cool, and he wasn’t in a rush to pick up his furry friend that he and his ex-roommate both have custody over. Kylo, a border collie, alternates between the two separate households every week.
Originally from Seoul, South Korea, Kim and his family immigrated to the United States when he was three years old. He attended Wichita East High School and eventually found himself moving to Lawrence to attend the University of Kansas.
Kim initially graduated from KU with a “microbiology degree that [he] never used.” However, he had started to DJ and produce music by his junior year of college. Going into college, he didn’t have a clear vision of what he wanted to be. His parents encouraged him to be a doctor, but later on, Kim realized that he didn’t want to be a doctor and really enjoying creating music.
“My parents always forced me to play piano and at the time, I didn’t really want to do it,” Kim said, with a laugh as he reminisces on his past. “But now that I’m older, I really appreciate the fact that they made me go into music.”
Growing up, Kim believes that he had all the pieces there with music lessons. He heard EDM (also known as electric dance music) for the first time in college and instantly fell in love with it.
Kim enjoys how broad EDM is because there are so many different subgenres that people can relate to. “EDM captures a huge audience. No matter what you’re into or what music you like, there’s going to be something for you,” said Kim.
It wasn’t until that Kim was working a full-time job that he realized he was unhappy. He would come home every day after work and teach himself music to relax and escape reality. It took him a year and a half of this repetitive pattern before he quit his job to focus more on producing music.
Soon afterwards, Kim came up with his DJ name, Seoul Real. Seoul Real is a clever pun between his home country and his authenticity as an artist.
“Jaehun has grown a lot as a producer since he first started. I remember when he started dabbling with music production. Now he’s able to create songs and I think that shows a lot of growth,” said James Maynard, who is an old friend of Kim’s and has DJed with him at multiple events.
Over the past few years, Kim was also able to develop and shape his particular style of music. There are different subgenres of EDM and fast-paced hype music is one of the most popular ones. However, Kim’s music has more of emotional aspects because he relates to that subgenre the most.
“I want my music to have an emotional connection with people and I want them to feel something when they listen to my music,” said Kim.
Carson Nguyen, a longtime supporter of Kim, said “Jaehun has always been full of creativity and art. He actually introduced me to a lot of the music I listen to now. It’s nice to watch him progress and use his knowledge of music to create something that all of us can sit down and appreciate.”
Aside from releasing new music, collaborating with other artists, and DJing at a few gigs in 2017, Kim was also verified as an artist on Spotify. According to Kim, the process to becoming verified is a lot simpler than people may think. There is a program called Distro Kid that many independent artists use. Distro Kid acts as an artist’s record label while letting the artist keep 100% of the profits. For an annual fee, Kim is verified on major music streaming sites, like Spotify, Apple Music, and Google Play.
In early March this year, he released “Let Me Go” on Soundcloud and Spotify, which is a collaboration with another DJ who goes by the name, Broseph.
For the rest of 2018, Kim has a busy schedule lined up as he plans on releasing more music as well as his first EP album. Lately, he has been “focusing on quality over quantity and figuring what [his] sound is…what emotions [he] wants to bring to the world.”
Before finishing his hot latte and leaving to pick up his dog, Kim had some advice for anyone pursuing their passion. “My best advice would be to not get intimidated by your dream, but to split up your dream into manageable portions. When it comes to your dreams, consistency is key.”
Seoul Real can be spotted in action on March 31st, 2018, at AURA in Kansas City, Missouri where he will be opening up for Longer Days.
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/seoulrealofficial/
Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/seoulreal
