‘Kpop Demon Hunters’ singer Audrey Nuna on Golden, Oscars Buzz

The Jetlag is really for Audrey Nuna. Fresh from an international tour that brought her from Korea to Japan to Australia, the 26-year-old singer rapper still adapts to time zones, including a memorable gym session from 3 hours that wired her until 8:00 in the morning. But the exhaustion is worth it: Nuna drives on the wave of “Golden”, her outbreak contribution to the soundtrack “Kpop Demon Hunters” that has become a viral worldwide phenomenon.

Nuna offers the singing voice for Mira, one of the three members of the fictional K-pop group Huntr/X, alongside vocalists Eja (that lead singer Rumi) and Rei Ami (who votes Zoey). Together the trio performed ‘Golden’, which number 1 on Spotify’s Daily Top Songs Global Chart and the soundtrack album to number 1 on the Billboard 200 – the biggest streaming week for a soundtrack in three years.

“When I was recording these songs and worked on this project, I clearly remember that I told my mother, oh, and this was in Korean,” but like, oh, eomma, I think this movie is going to do really well, “Nuna remembers.” I really felt that this project would do very well. I did not know that it would simply destroy his own niche in the sense that he was just received so worldwide. ”

The instincts of the Korean-American artist proved to be visible. The song is submitted for Academy Award consideration by Netflix, a prospect that Nuna has both surprised and philosophical.

“I feel that I just have to go for the Egot,” she says. “I think that God and the universe are so incredibly mysterious in this way, where I cannot believe that I might get an Oscar nomination, and this project could possibly get an Oscar nomination before I have ever been considered a grammy nomination.”

The potential Oscar -nod mainly feels surreal in view of the namesake of Nuna. “I am actually named after Audrey Hepburn, who was known as a super versatile. She was both in the theater and clear in acting, and did music. So I feel, as amazing as it is all, it feels weird in some ways strange prophetic.”

For Nuna, who fades the lines between POP, R&B and alternative to her genre-liquid folk songs, the success of “Golden” has strengthened its belief in artistic border coils. “I think those lines are not relevant. I think genre is dead in a certain sense,” she says. “I have always been interested in so many different types of music.”

Nuna grew up as one of the few Asian Americans in her suburb of New Jersey and absorbed different influences-from Britney Spears and early K-pop groups such as Wonder Girls to Whitney Houston, Destiny’s Child, Childish Gambino, Radiohead and Björk. This eclectic musical education was its refusal to be categorized.

“I have never felt the need or desire to hide such interests,” she explains. “When this film was thrown for me, it was this idea not to have to choose part of yourself and be able to be full yourself. That is really the reason why, when this role was placed for me to be part of this project, I immediately jumped on board.”

That philosophy of embracing duality runs through Nuna’s recent album “Trench”, split into two halves: “Soft Skin” and “Hard Feels.” The concept reflects polarities that she always felt attracted – “beautiful chords and super hard drum sounds” or “playful double grafting word player with kind of these deep introspective subjects.”

“I wanted to show that they can co -exist and they can sit next to each other in a track list, whether it is sonic or thematic,” she says.

Nuna’s recent international Touring hair first time she performed outside the US. From the explosive energy at the Pentaport festival of Korea to more reserved but deeply connected audience in Tokyo, she discovered that music really transcends cultural boundaries.

“The only thing that really felt constant was exactly this, like, true and deep connection that all these great people who came to my show have with the music I make. It was really cool to see how, regardless of the body language, regardless of the level of noise in the audience, this always translates for me,” she reflects.

Experience reinforced its belief in the transforming power of music. “It has really recovered my belief in this idea that music can change the way people think and the way people wear themselves in their daily lives, regardless of the culture in which you are raised.”

While Nuna navigates in this new phase of global recognition, she has learned not to consider vulnerability as weakness, but as a strength. With reference to “Atlas of the Heart” by Brené Brown, she explains: “Your level of connectedness will only be as great as your level of self -acceptance.”

For now, Nuna is still processing the whirlwind success of “Golden” and “Kpop Demon Hunters”, which is now the most watched film of Netflix ever. As the distinctions continue to flow in and the Oscar season approaches, one thing is clear: this genre-language artist has just begun.

“I feel absolutely just overwhelmed by gratitude. I feel a feeling of only extreme humility and just very honored to be part of a project that brings the Korean culture to such a different level of platform,” she says.