The jet lag is real for Audrinena. New from the international tour that took her from Korea to Japan and Australia, the 26-year-old singer-rapper is still adapting to her time zone. But fatigue is worth it. Noona is riding the waves of “golden.” This is a breakout contribution to the soundtrack of KPOP Demon Hunters, which has become a viral global phenomenon.
Nuna will provide the singing voice of Mira, one of three members of the fictional K-Pop group Huntr/X, along with vocalists Ejae (leading singer Rumi) and Rei Ami (voicing Zoey). Together, the trio played “Golden,” reaching number one on Spotify’s Daily Top Songs global charts, and pushing the soundtrack album to number one on the Billboard 200, the biggest streaming week of the soundtrack in over three years.
“I clearly remember what I said to my mom when I was recording these songs and working on this project. I remember that this was in Korean. “I really felt that this project would work very well. I didn’t know that it would completely erase its own niche in the sense that it was just globally received.”
The instincts of Korean-American artists proved foresight. The song has been submitted for Netflix to award the Academy Awards. Netflix is a philosophical prospect that Nuna is amazed.
“Now I feel like I have to go to EGOT at this point,” she says. “I think God and the universe are so incredibly mystical. I can’t believe there is a chance that there will be an Oscar nomination there. This project could potentially get an Oscar nomination before being nominated for a Grammy Award.”
The potential Oscar nod is particularly surreal given the Nuna name. “I was actually named after Audrey Hepburn, who is known to be super multifaceted. She appeared in theatres, clearly in the acting, and also in the music.
For Nuna, who blurs the line between pop, R&B, and the alternative to her genre fluid anthems, the success of “golden” reinforced her belief in artistic boundary pushing. “I think these lines are irrelevant. In a way, I think the genre is dead,” she says. “I personally have always been interested in so many different types of music.”
Growing up as one of the few Asian Americans in the New Jersey suburbs, Nuna absorbed a variety of influences, from early K-pop groups such as Britney Spears and Wonder Girls, to Destiny’s Child, the childish Gambino, Radiohead and Bjork. This eclectic music education shaped her classification of rejection.
“I have never felt the need or desire to hide any of those interests,” she explains. “When this film was pitched to me, it was this idea that you don’t have to be able to choose a part of yourself and become your full self. So when this role was pitched to me to take part in this project, I was on board right away.”
The philosophy of embracing duality is carried out through Nuna’s recent album, “Trench,” and is divided into two halves: “soft skin” and “hard emotions.” This concept reflects the prejudice she feels constantly portrayed – “beautiful chords and ultra-highly strict drum sounds” or “a kind of playful double-enner word play of these deep introspective topics.”
“We wanted to show that they can coexist, but whether it’s acoustic or the subject, you can sit side by side on the tracklist,” she says.
Nuna’s recent international tour – her first performance in the US – proved to be eye-opening. From the explosive energy at the Pentaport Festival in Korea to the more modest but deeply connected audiences in Tokyo, she discovered that music really transcends cultural boundaries.
“One of the things that felt really constant was the real deep connection that all these amazing people who came to my show have to the music I make. It was really cool to see how this is always translated for me, like body language, regardless of the level of noise in the audience,” she reflects.
This experience reinforced her belief in the transformational power of music. “It really restores my belief in this notion that music can change people’s way of thinking regardless of the culture you grew up in, and that it allows people to change the way people think, and change the way people carry themselves in their daily lives.”
As Nuna navigated this new stage of global awareness, she learned to view vulnerability as strength rather than weakness. Quoting Brene Brown’s Atlas of the Mind, she explains:
For now, Nuna is still handling the whirlwind success of “Golden” and “Kpop Demon Hunters.” As praise continues to pour in and Oscar season approaches, one thing becomes clear. Artists who go against this genre are just starting out.
“I definitely feel overwhelmed by gratitude. I feel an extreme sense of humility and am extremely honored to be part of a project that brings Korean culture to such a different level of platform,” she says.
