NoSo
American musician
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Early life and influences
NoSo was born Baek Hwong on May 14, 1997, in Chicago, Illinois.[2][3][4] They grew up attending a music festival at a venue where musicians such as B. B. King, Bonnie Raitt, and Aretha Franklin performed.[2] They participated in theater classes during their childhood, and performed in productions such as West Side Story.[3]
At the age of 12, NoSo decided to pursue their own musical endeavors.[citation needed] 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.[2][3] When they were 16, NoSo moved to Los Angeles and started to write music.[2][3] Eventually, NoSo pursued their undergraduate education at the University of Southern California's Thornton School of Music, where they studied popular music.[2]
Career
NoSo signed with Partisan Records under the stage name NoSo.[2]
In 2019, NoSo participated in NPR Music's Tiny Desk Concert.[2][1]
NoSo's debut album is entitled Stay Proud of Me.[2][3] 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.[3] 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.[2][4][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.[2]
NoSo has described songwriting as a means of exploring and articulating their transgender identity.[1] Several songs draw from their experiences as a trans Korean American raised in a predominantly White community.[2][1] They wrote the song "Parasites" while recovering from gender-affirming top surgery.[2][5]
For their sophomore album, When Are You Leaving?, Hwong told Argus Far that Wong Kar-wai's "visual aesthetics inspired the album cover and the moodiness of the record."[6]