Baekhyun Hwong (born 1997), known professionally as NoSo, is a Korean-American non-binary singer-songwriter, guitarist, producer, and composer.[1] NoSo is known for their 2022 debut album, Stay Proud of Me.[2] [3] [4]
NoSo was born Baekhyun Hwong on May 14, 1997, in Chicago, Illinois. They grew up attending a music festival at a venue where musicians such as B. B. King, Bonnie Raitt, and Aretha Franklin performed. They participated in theater classes during their childhood, and performed in productions such as West Side Story.
At the age of 12, NoSo decided to pursue their own musical endeavors. They initially took guitar lessons at a local music store, until deciding to learn to play guitar on their own in their family’s basement. When they were 16, NoSo moved to Los Angeles and started to write music. Eventually, NoSo pursued their undergraduate education at the University of Southern California's Thornton School of Music, where they studied popular music.
NoSo signed with Partisan Records under the stage name NoSo.
In 2019, NoSo participated in NPR Music's Tiny Desk Concert.
NoSo’s debut album is entitled Stay Proud of Me. NoSo began to lay the groundwork for their debut album in 2017, and eventually recorded the work in their family’s condominium during the COVID-19 quarantine. The guitar-led album was released on July 8, 2022, as a coming-of-age story that encapsulates NoSo’s experiences with their gender and racial identity thus far.[5] The cover art for this album was inspired by Korean records from the 1980s that NoSo’s parents played for them as a baby.
NoSo is a non-binary artist, and they have utilized songwriting as a space in which they can process their ever-evolving gender identity. This is exemplified by the experience NoSo had when writing the opening track of the album, titled “Parasites”, as it was written while they were recovering from gender-affirming top surgery. Several songs on the album express their reflections on their complex and inextricably connected identities as a queer transgender Korean-American who grew up in a predominantly white neighborhood.