Ex-NU’EST singer Baekho has left longtime label Pledis Entertainment after 13 years with the company.
On March 6, Pledis Entertainment announced on Weverse that Baekho’s contract with the company is due to expire on March 14, and would not be renewed. “After thorough and honest discussions about the future direction of his career, both Baekho and Pledis Entertainment have mutually agreed to end the contract,” it wrote.
“Since his debut as a member of NU’EST in 2012, Baekho has built a distinguished career as a singer-songwriter while expanding his presence into musicals, variety shows, and various other fields,” Pledis Entertainment added. “With his remarkable passion and talent, Baekho has made a lasting impact across multiple entertainment domains.”
As an expression of gratitude to his fans for their support, Baekho will be releasing a final digital single on March 14 in order to “mark the conclusion of his official activities as an artist under Pledis Entertainment”.
“We are truly grateful to Baekho for working with us all these years. We sincerely hope that Baekho’s new ventures lead to an even more brilliant future, and we wholeheartedly wish him all the best as he embarks on a new journey,” the company stated.
Baekho’s previous release was the September 2024 single ‘Nutty Nutty’, featuring Jessi. The song marked his third music release that year, having dropped the single album ‘Love Or Die’ and ‘Wet & Wild’ previously. In 2023, he also collaborated with then-labelmate Park Ji-won from fromis_9 on the duet single ‘What Are We’.
In other news, EXO member Kai announced yesterday that he would be embarking on a solo tour of Asia titled ‘KAION’. The tour will kick off with a two-night show in Seoul, before he performs in Macau, Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta, Bangkok and more through to August.
Reneé Rapp is seen as a “huge inspiration” by SZA.
The 25-year-old artist performed SZA’s Good Days in the BBC Radio 1 Live Lounge, accompanied by two acoustic guitarists and a harp player. SZA, 35, was deeply moved by the rendition.
She posted a short video of the moment on Instagram Stories and wrote: “Renee is a HUGE inspiration, energy, voice spirit.”
During her chat with the BBC, Renee shared her thoughts about the track. She said: “I mean, I love SZA. I mean, she was one of my favorite artists in high school. And she's remained one of my favorite artists to this day. I think she's amazing. She's also, I mean, she's an incredible songwriter, but I think because she has so much swag. People don't realize how good of a singer she is. She's a fantastic vocalist and is really, really, really articulate. And I don't cover a lot of songs anymore. So I wanted to cover something that was, like, slightly challenging and also really vocally impressive, and frankly, hard for me to do.”
Renee is currently in the middle of promoting her second album, Bite Me, and opened up about how much more enjoyable it was to create compared to her first project.
She explained: “I mean, I feel like everything was incredibly different. I stopped listening to people that don't make music, because if you don't make music, then why the hell am I listening to you. And I also think the biggest difference, I think I just got a lot better. I think I have just become a better songwriter. I think I understand how to make pop music now in a way that I didn't really before. And I was very sure about what this album was and thematically, what it needed.
“So I felt like I was quite like, headstrong in like, what was gonna work and what wasn't. Because, nobody knows something better than yourself. I think a lot of things were different. I also just, like, had a lot of fun making it, like, I made it with like, three people, mostly, like, it was always like, four of us in the studio all the time, and we got so close, and some of us were already so close. So it was also just like a mess. It was such a mess, like we were just tweaking every day. It was so fun. And I don't think I enjoyed making the first one as much.”
