Kevin Woo of U-Kiss on the K-pop band, new music, YouTube and TikTok videos, and a dream collaboration with Ariana Grande
- Woo, who left U-Kiss in 2017, has been performing online during the pandemic, from making cooking live-streams to TikTok videos to holding virtual concerts
- He has taken this year to experiment with new genres and a more mature sound, while sticking to his roots
Korean-American artist Kevin Woo, a long-time member of K-pop boy band U-Kiss, says he is experimenting with a more mature style for his solo career. The 28-year-old singer and actor, who has 725,000 followers on Instagram and a YouTube channel with more than 148,000 subscribers – fans he calls Klovers, short for Kevin Lovers – says he wants to explore different types of music.
Woo was born and raised in the state of California after his parents immigrated to the United States in the late 1970s.
“I grew up speaking Korean in the household and learned Korean culture and traditions from my family,” he says. “Although I was immersed in American pop culture, I was more intrigued by Korean entertainment, hence the early move to South Korea to pursue my dream of becoming a K-pop star.”
Woo was scouted by a South Korean entertainment agency at the age of 15, and moved to the Asian country soon after. He went on to spend nearly a decade with U-Kiss before leaving in 2017.
“Touring around the globe with the band is one of my fondest memories,” Woo says of his time in the group, which he joined in 2008. “We were one of the first groups to pave the way for K-pop in regions such as Latin America and Europe.
