ALL’N Is Billboard’s K-Pop Up & Comer of the Month for August: Exclusive Photos

Part 1. From Classical Violinist to K-Pop Artist

You are a highly accomplished classical violinist who has won international violin competitions. What was the defining moment that led you to decide to transition from the world of classical music to becoming a K-pop artist?

ALL’N: Growing up, I was fortunate to be concertmaster or a soloist in most of the orchestras I played in. I was very serious about violin, but I remember noticing something that the violin could not really do. One of my orchestra friends who sat toward the back would bring a guitar before rehearsal, play the chords to whatever songs were popular that year, and everyone would start singing with him. I remember thinking, I can play something difficult and people will watch me, but he can play a few chords and bring the whole room into the music with him. That stayed with me.

So I taught myself guitar. I figured that if I had already learned one string instrument at a high level, I could probably use the same practice mentality to learn another one. One of the first K-pop songs I learned to play and sing was EXO’s “Growl,” and that was honestly one of the songs that pulled me into K-pop. I started looking at K-pop differently, not just as music but as this combination of performance, personality, visuals, and fandom that could make people feel involved.

Around the same time, I was aware of Henry Lau playing violin in the K-pop world, and that mattered to me because it showed me that violin did not have to stay inside classical music. After that, whenever I had a talent show, an audition, or any kind of performance, I almost always brought my violin. Even when I was being judged for singing or performance, the violin was usually the thing people remembered most.

Looking back, I do not think I left violin to become a K-pop artist. Violin is actually what taught me how to become one. It taught me that if you repeat something enough and practice it correctly, you can become good at things that once felt impossible. I used that same mindset for guitar, singing, dancing, producing, and now for learning the business side well enough to build my own label. So violin is not just something I add to my music. It is really the starting point of the whole journey.

What is the meaning behind your stage name, “ALL’N”? Compared to the time when you were active under your real name, Kang Sungmin, have there been any changes in your mind-set or identity as an artist?

ALL’N: ALL’N comes from “all in.” It is basically the mentality I try to live with: if I decide to do something, I want to give it my best within the things I can actually control. I cannot control every result, every algorithm, every opportunity, or what other people decide. But I can control how prepared I am, how hard I work, and whether I did everything I reasonably could. For me, that is the best way to live without regret.

The Korean name, 올린, has another meaning too. It is the last two syllables of 바이올린, which is “violin” in Korean. Since I am building my identity around being a violin-driven K-pop soloist and I want violin to be present throughout my music, I liked that the name connected both sides of me: the mentality and the instrument.

Using a new name also felt a little like starting over with a promise to myself. If I am going to call myself ALL’N, then I should try to live up to that name. I do not think I became a completely different person from Kang Sungmin, but I became more intentional about what kind of artist and person I want to be.

You founded your own one-person agency, SKS Entertainment. What was the particular reason behind choosing an independent path as the head of your own label rather than joining a major entertainment company?

ALL’N: I have trained in much larger entertainment environments before, so I understand why people want to join a major company. The infrastructure, connections, experience, and speed that a big company can offer are very real advantages. I have a lot of respect for that system.

For me, though, I realized that the things I would have to give up were also the things I value the most: my time, how I want to be represented as an artist, creative control, and full transparency around the financial and legal decisions that affect my career. I wanted to know why decisions were being made, where the money was going, and what I was building toward.

Of course, the tradeoff is that I have much more responsibility now. There are days when I am practicing, producing, reviewing budgets, having meetings, planning content, and handling company issues all in the same day. I have to be very careful that being the CEO does not make me neglect the artist, and that being the artist does not make me irresponsible as the CEO.

But ownership matters a lot to me. I have always said I want to live with as few regrets as possible. If I take this path and it does not work, I can accept that more easily knowing I made the decisions and gave it everything I had. And if it does work, then maybe I can build something bigger than just my own career. The funny thing is, when I was younger, my dream after becoming a singer was to someday found an entertainment company. SKS is still small, but somehow I ended up trying to do both dreams at the same time.

Part 2. Debut Single ‘We Up’ and Musical Identity

Your debut single “We Up,” released on April 15, was essentially your introduction to the public as an artist. What message and musical identity did you want to convey through this album?

ALL’N: “We Up” was my first introduction, so I wanted the message to be very simple and true to where I was in my life: we are going up, but we are going up together. I had spent a long time training and preparing without knowing exactly when things would finally move, and I think a lot of people can relate to that feeling of working while nobody really sees what you are building yet. The song is confident, but I wanted that confidence to come from preparation and persistence, not from acting like I had already made it.

Musically, I also wanted to show as much of my identity as I could in one debut. I am a violinist, but I also sing, rap, dance, and produce, so I did not want the violin to feel like a special classical section that suddenly appears for ten seconds. I wanted it inside the actual K-pop performance. In “We Up,” the violin can be dramatic and aggressive, and then I can move into rap, vocals, and choreography without treating those things like separate worlds.

I think that was the real purpose of the song for me. I wanted people to understand that I am not trying to be a classical violinist visiting K-pop. I am trying to build ALL’N as a K-pop artist where violin is simply part of the sound from the beginning.

You personally took on the production of your debut release and completed the album yourself. Was there a particular track or sound that you spent the most time and effort refining during the production process?

ALL’N: For “We Up,” the violin intro probably took me the longest. Because it is the first thing you hear, I did not want to play something so simple that it hid what I can actually do as a violinist. But I also did not want to throw in a random classical solo just to prove I could play. It still had to sound like the entrance to “We Up.”

I went through scales, arpeggios, different runs, and little ideas from techniques and pieces I had played over the years, then started stitching notes together until the line felt right in the key of the song. The timing was annoying in the best way because it also had to end exactly where I needed to start singing. I would change a few notes, record it again, listen, and then realize the phrase was landing slightly too early or too late.

The instrumental itself sounds fairly simple, but that was also intentional. I actually removed a lot. Sometimes you keep adding sounds because you think a track needs to feel bigger, and then eventually you realize it was stronger before you added half of them.

“Dream Higher” was difficult in a different way. I liked the emotional feeling of melodic electronic music, with beautiful synths and guitars, but I did not want the song to turn into a straight EDM record. I changed the drums and added more kicks because I wanted more drive, and I spent a lot of time finding synths that did not make the production feel cheap. Then there was the question I always run into: where does the violin actually belong? Production is really a lot of tiny decisions like that, from EQ and plugins to sound selection and arrangement. I have been producing for years, so I enjoy it, but the details are definitely where I lose the most time.

Shortly after your debut, you made a strong impression by appearing on major Korean music shows, including M Countdown, Music Bank, Show! Music Core, and Inkigayo. What did you feel when you stepped onto your first music show stage, and are there any behind-the-scenes stories you would like to share?

ALL’N: Stepping onto the major Korean music shows felt like I had finally made one of my childhood dreams real. As a trainee, you watch those stages for years, so in my head it almost felt like graduating from being someone who was trying to become a K-pop artist to someone who had officially debuted.

One of my funniest memories was the dry rehearsal for M Countdown. In “We Up,” I had a bench that I stand on near the beginning and then sit on later during the bridge. The camera area on a music-show stage is very specific, so while I was backing up during the choreography, I accidentally knocked the bench over. I kept dancing like nothing happened because I did not know what else to do. Then the bridge came, I turned around, and obviously there was no bench anymore. So I just sat in the air and held a half-squat while trying to look completely normal. My legs were burning.

I was actually scared afterward because it was my first music-show rehearsal and I thought, what if the producers think I am too risky and they cancel my stage? Of course, that did not happen, and now I can laugh about it.

Then at Show! Music Core, I ended up in an elevator with TXT because I did not yet know the etiquette that a rookie should wait for the senior artists to enter first. I just walked in, and then suddenly TXT and their manager came in. I told them they were all really good-looking, and Yeonjun asked me which member I thought was the best-looking. I said, “Man, I’m not a girl, but if I had to choose…” and started singing the days of the week from Jungkook’s “Seven” while pointing at the members: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. Everybody laughed. My debut week had a lot of moments like that where I was living something I had dreamed about for years while also clearly learning everything in real time.

Your performances are particularly striking because you simultaneously showcase your skills in violin, vocals, and rap on stage. When preparing for live performances, what do you pay the most attention to, whether physically or technically?

ALL’N: The hardest part is honestly just sounding good while moving that much. In a group, everyone is still working extremely hard, but the lines are divided between members, so there are at least small moments where one person is not singing. As a soloist, I am rapping, singing, playing violin, and dancing through almost the entire song myself, so there is not much time to reset my breathing.

That means I cannot practice vocals and choreography as if they are separate things. I need to know what my breath feels like after that exact dance section, whether I can still support the next line, and where I can recover without the audience noticing. “We Up” taught me very quickly how different it is to sing something well in a studio and then sing it after dancing full-out.

The violin creates another limitation. I want to move with it because I do not want the performance to become static whenever I pick it up, but there is only so much movement you can do before the bow control, intonation, or tone starts suffering. So some movements have to be designed around the instrument rather than the other way around.

That is probably what I focus on the most now: stamina, breathing, and body control. I want the audience to feel like everything is happening naturally, even though behind the scenes I have probably repeated that exact transition hundreds of times.

Part 3. Pioneering “Violin-Driven K-Pop”

The term “violin-driven K-pop,” which combines classical violin melodies with trendy hip-hop beats, is a very fresh and distinctive description of your music. Where did the idea for this unique combination originate?

ALL’N: The idea really started from me thinking that violin does not have to mean classical music. Classical music is where I learned the instrument, but the violin itself can do a lot more than people sometimes expect. It depends on what you play, how you attack the notes, what beat is underneath it, what chords are happening, and what kind of production you put around it.

K-pop already works like that. It pulls from so many places. You can hear hip-hop, rock, R&B, electronic music, Brazilian funk, and all kinds of other influences inside K-pop. So to me, violin should be able to travel through those sounds too. I do not want to make one formula where every ALL’N song is “classical violin plus hip-hop beat.” That would get boring very quickly.

For a hip-hop-based track, I might set the key and BPM, loop the chords and beat, pick up the violin, and just jam until I find a lick that feels cool. On a ballad, I usually play very differently because I am thinking more about the vocal and how the violin can answer it or support the emotion instead of competing with it.

I want to keep showing that the violin can fit into a lot of different genres. Sometimes it can be the main hook, sometimes it can almost act like a lead guitar, and sometimes it may barely be there. The sound should change with the song.

When creating a song, do you usually come up with the violin topline first, or do you start by creating a hip-hop-based beat and then build the violin performance around it? We would love to hear about your personal creative process.

ALL’N: I do not really have one routine where the violin always comes first or the beat always comes first. Usually I know the emotion before I know the exact production. I see music pretty visually in my head, so different songs have colors and environments attached to them. “Dream Higher,” for example, was always light blue to me, very glowing and dreamy, almost like an LED world. That image helped me decide what kinds of synths, guitars, and textures belonged in the song.

If I am making something more hip-hop-driven, I will usually get the key, tempo, chords, and beat going first, then play the loop over and over and improvise on violin. I will record different ideas until there is one little phrase that makes me stop and think, okay, that is something I would remember. Then I build from there.

If it is a ballad or something more vocal-centered, the process can be almost the opposite. The melody and lyrics may need to be right first, and then I think about where the violin can come in without making the song feel crowded. Sometimes the violin idea comes very late, even though violin is obviously part of my identity.

I think that is important. I do not want to add violin just because people expect ALL’N to have violin. It still needs a reason to be there. The instrument will always be part of my music, but I want its role to be different depending on what the song needs.

Traditional classical music and mainstream hip-hop can sometimes feel like very different worlds. What kinds of music or artists do you usually draw inspiration from when breaking down that boundary and creating a harmonious sound?

ALL’N: I usually get inspired more by individual songs than by one specific artist. There are artists I really admire, but I do not think there is anyone where every single song affects me in the same way. Usually it is one song that finds me at the right time and makes me feel something very strongly. Those are the songs I end up studying.

My classical training definitely affects how I listen. When you grow up with violin, especially with competitions and sight-reading, you get used to looking at music very analytically: tempo, key, rhythm, phrasing, dynamics, where the difficult section is, and how everything is structured. I do something similar when I hear a song I love. I start asking why it made me feel that way. Was it the drum pattern? The chord change? A sound that came in right before the chorus? Was the drop actually big, or did it feel big because everything went quiet right before it?

That is why classical music and hip-hop do not feel as far apart to me as they might sound at first. The instruments and language can be completely different, but you are still dealing with rhythm, harmony, tension, release, repetition, dynamics, and emotion. If the BPM works, the key works, and the musical idea makes sense, sounds that seem unrelated can live together.

So I take inspiration from songs across a lot of genres, break down what I think created the feeling, and then try to use that knowledge in my own way. I really believe ideas come from other ideas. The goal is not to copy the surface of something I like; it is to understand why it worked on me and then make something different with that understanding.

You have demonstrated a wide range of abilities as a rapper, vocalist, and violinist. When working on a song, how do you balance the roles of these three different elements?

ALL’N: When I decided to come back into K-pop as a soloist, one thing I kept thinking about was how to make one person feel as full as a group. Part of the fun of a K-pop group is that you get different voices, different personalities, and different energies inside the same song. I obviously cannot become five different people, but I can create more contrast than just singing in one tone for three minutes.

That is why I intentionally use a deeper tone when I rap and a smoother, airier tone when I sing. Then the violin becomes another voice completely because it does not need words. In my head, those three elements can almost act like three different members of the same performance.

The balance changes every song. “We Up” has a lot of violin because I needed to introduce that side of me very clearly. Another song may need more rap in the verses because I am telling a story. Another may be mostly vocal because the hook needs emotion. Sometimes the chorus might be melodic, and sometimes a simple chant works better.

So I do not really sit there and say, this song needs 30 percent rap, 40 percent singing, and 30 percent violin. I just keep asking which voice should carry this part. If I use all three just to prove that I can, the song will probably get worse.

Beyond “violin-driven K-pop,” are there any other musical genres that you would like to explore or combine with your violin playing in the future?

ALL’N: I definitely want to explore more K-pop rock and pop-rock. Lately that kind of music has been giving me a lot of positive energy, especially songs that feel like they would be huge with a live band and a crowd singing together. One of my favorite examples is DAY6’s “Welcome to the Show.” I love that kind of feeling.

I also think violin has a lot of room in that sound that has not been explored very much in K-pop. It can almost take the role of a lead guitar, it can double a guitar melody, it can make an intro feel cinematic, or it can come in during the final chorus and make everything feel bigger. I would love to experiment with that.

More generally, I think K-pop is closer to a category than one strict genre because it keeps absorbing different sounds. That is exciting for me because it means I do not have to choose between being “the hip-hop violin guy” or “the rock violin guy.” I can keep changing the genre and let the violin change with it.

Part 4. Entrepreneur and Artist

You are balancing the management of your company with your activities as an artist, from music production to planning your performances. How do you maintain a balance between Kang Sungmin, the agency executive, and ALL’N, the artist?

ALL’N: It has been difficult, and I am still figuring it out. The hardest part is not even the amount of work by itself. It is how many times I have to switch brains in one day. I can be listening to a vocal and thinking completely emotionally about whether it gives me goosebumps, and then twenty minutes later I am looking at a budget or a contract and I need to be very unemotional and practical.

Sometimes it feels like going from the recording studio straight into the boardroom without actually leaving the building. The artist side of me asks, “Does this feel right? Is this what I want people to remember?” The CEO side has to ask, “Can we afford it? Can we execute it? What can go wrong? What happens six months from now?” Both questions matter, but they use very different parts of my brain.

I also think people can get overwhelmed when they try to take on too much before they have built the capacity for it. I call it paralysis by overanalysis. You have so many decisions to make that you end up making none of them. I have tried to add responsibility gradually and build systems around myself so I can keep moving.

The rewarding part is that I am learning what actually makes the entertainment industry work. I do not think I should personally do every job forever. That would probably be a terrible way to scale a company. But if I understand the jobs, I can eventually hire better people, communicate with them better, and know when something is not being done correctly.

What is the biggest advantage you have experienced from pursuing an independent career, and conversely, what has been the biggest practical challenge?

ALL’N: The biggest advantage is freedom. I can decide what music I want to release, who I want to work with, how I want to present myself, how often I want to perform, and what kind of company I want to build around the artist. I do not take that freedom lightly because it is one of the main reasons I chose this path.

But the downside is that freedom forces you to become disciplined. There is nobody standing over me every morning telling me I have to practice, go to the gym, finish a song, answer an email, or prepare for a meeting. If I become lazy, I am the person who pays for it. I stopped drinking more than two years ago while preparing for this, and even though I work in entertainment, I still do not drink alcohol. I train consistently, try to keep my food simple, and protect my sleep as much as I can because I know how quickly everything starts falling apart when my body is exhausted.

The biggest practical problem is time. I genuinely wish there were more hours in the day. There is always another song to work on, another practice, another piece of content, another meeting, another budget, and then the long-term company work on top of that. I can get very locked into something and suddenly realize hours disappeared.

So time management has probably become one of the most important skills in my life right now. I am trying to move as fast as I can without building a career that destroys my health or my ability to enjoy making music. That balance is much easier to talk about than to actually do.

When there are moments when your decisions as a company representative conflict with your emotions as an artist, which side ultimately has the final say?

ALL’N: Right now, if the disagreement is about the core creative direction, the artist side probably has the stronger vote. I came back to K-pop because there is music and a type of artist I genuinely want to put into the world, so if I keep making the safest business decision until I no longer like what I am creating, then I think I would miss the point of why I started the company in the first place.

At the same time, I cannot pretend the CEO side does not matter. A creative decision can be exciting and still be financially irresponsible, legally risky, or impossible to execute. The company is what gives the artist a chance to keep releasing music next year, so sometimes protecting the business is actually protecting the art too.

At this stage, I am willing to sacrifice quite a lot for the music and visuals when I really believe in them, so I would say I lean toward ALL’N. But I also know that may change as the company grows and more people depend on my decisions. I am still learning where that line should be.

Part 4. Entrepreneur and Artist (continued)

What is the meaning behind the name of your fandom, “N’CORE”? What does N’CORE mean to you, especially as the fans who have been there with you from the very beginning?

ALL’N: N’CORE has a few meanings that fit together. The first is “encore.” After a performance, when the audience asks for an encore, they are basically saying, “That was great. Keep going. Give us one more.” I loved that because that is exactly what I need from fans, especially at this stage of my career. They are the people telling me they want to hear the next song.

Then there is “core,” because they are the core group of people around me from the beginning. The “N” also connects back to ALL’N, since my artist name ends with N and has the apostrophe. And the fandom name was not something I just announced by myself. We actually voted on it together through Instagram Story polls, so the fans were part of choosing it.

I know I am still early in my career, but even getting from the first song to the second song independently has taken a huge amount of work. Music videos, Korean TV promotions, production, practice, everything behind the scenes adds up very quickly. When I read comments from N’CORE saying they are waiting for the next release or that a song helped them, that is not a small thing to me. I really do read those comments, and I try to reply to as many as I can.

I say this a lot because I believe it: to dream higher, you need believers. It is much harder to keep chasing something when everybody around you thinks you should stop. N’CORE gives me that belief, and I hope eventually I can give some of that same belief back to them.

Is there any artist you would particularly like to work with in the future, or an artist whose music you would like to share the sound of your violin with?

ALL’N: The most natural answer for me is Henry Lau. When I was younger and first wondering whether violin could actually exist inside K-pop, he was one of the people who made that idea feel possible. So if I ever had the chance to make music with him, it would mean something to me personally beyond just being a big collaboration.

But I am very open to unexpected collaborations too. I would love to put violin into a song where people would not normally imagine hearing it. Sometimes the most interesting combination is the one that sounds strange on paper and then makes complete sense once you hear it.

And because I am still early in my career, I think a collaboration that happens now would mean a lot to me. Later, if I become much bigger, there may be obvious business reasons for people to work together. If an artist I admire wanted to create something with me now, I would probably take it as a sign that they genuinely connected with the music or saw potential in what I am trying to build. That kind of belief is something I would remember.

Now that you have successfully completed your debut album promotions, what specific steps or plans do you have in mind for your next album or activities for the remainder of this year?

ALL’N: I have a surprise song planned for September, and it comes directly from the story of how I met TXT in an elevator during my debut promotions at Show! Music Core. That story went viral on TikTok and Instagram, and a lot of people who are now following my journey first found me through that video and then went to listen to my music. So I am genuinely grateful for what that moment did for me.

I thought it would be fun to take the entire story and turn it into a song. It is a weird idea, which is exactly why I like it. I have to figure out how to tell the story clearly, keep it feeling like K-pop, and still make the violin feel natural instead of forcing it into the track.

It is going to be short and very high-energy. I do not want to spoil the exact sound yet, but it is definitely not a calm song. I want people to hear it and immediately want to move.

After that, I have a lot of other music in different stages of completion. Some songs started years ago and I am rewriting them now, and some are completely new. I do not want every release to sound the same just because I introduced myself as a violin-driven K-pop artist. I would rather use each song to show another place the violin can go.

Ultimately, what kind of artist do you hope people will remember ALL’N as? And, to close the interview, is there anything you would like to say to your fans?

ALL’N: I hope people remember ALL’N as someone who really gave it everything he had. I know I am taking an unusual path, and there have already been a lot of moments where the safer or easier decision would have been to stop, wait, or do things the normal way. I want to be able to look back and know that I took the risk and tried to make the thing I imagined real.

Musically, I would be proud if violin-driven K-pop becomes something people associate with ALL’N and if I can help make violin feel natural in places where people did not expect it before. But I also hope people remember more than the violin. I want the story to make people feel like they can take their own dream more seriously, even if it seems late, difficult, strange, or nobody around them really understands it yet.

To N’CORE, I know you probably hear me say thank you all the time, but your comments really do affect me. I read them, I try to respond to as many as I can, and when something is not going the way I hoped, seeing that there are still people waiting for the next song gives me a reason to keep moving.

That is why the name N’CORE ended up meaning even more to me than I expected. You are literally the people asking me for the encore. And like I always say, to dream higher, you need believers. Thank you for believing in me while I am still building this story.

And thank you to Billboard Korea for giving me the opportunity to share it. It is an honor.