Rising Sorn
From K-pop to English pop, CLC member Sorn is ready to fly solo
Helmi Yusof
WHENEVER singer Sorn calls her father, he greets her with, “Hey, fighter.” He rarely calls her by her name. For a long time she didn’t understand it – even if her father was once a professional sports coach. But now as she embarks on a solo career after a decade with K-pop girl group CLC, it all makes sense.
“My parents have always wanted me to be brave and ambitious. When I was 14 years old, I told them I wanted to leave Thailand and go to South Korea to be a K-pop star. They didn’t stop me, they didn’t lecture me. My Dad said: ‘It’s your choice. It’s going to be full of ups and downs – but it’s your choice. And if some day, you decide to come home crying, it’ll also be your choice.’
“He knows I have many obstacles to overcome – a Thai girl singing in South Korea – so he imagines I’m always fighting battles on many fronts. His mindset is: ‘My daughter is a fighter. I have to teach her to fight.’”
Sorn is now facing the biggest fight of her career. In November 2021, after amicably ending her contract with Cube Entertainment which manages CLC, she signed with Wild Entertainment Group, which specialises in Asian-American and other bicultural artistes. Since then she’s released four English-language singles and music videos within a span of less than a year.
Her lyrics are, by her own admission, often autobiographical. They chart the tumultuous journey of finding her true self under the unrelenting glare of the public eye. In Nirvana Girl, for instance, she sings: “Everybody wanna tell me who or where or what I’m doin / Everybody wanna pull me in some kind of new direction / Oh my god, can I be myself right now?”
Her numbers are strong. Her latest hit Nirvana Girl has drawn 1.5 million views on YouTube; her other three videos boast six- and seven-digit figures. She has 1.5 million Instagram followers and 2.8 million TikTok fans. She entertains them with regular servings of goofy bite-sized videos, showing off a natural flair for screwball humour.
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ON HER OWN
But Sorn says the learning curve has been steep – perhaps even steeper than when she left home at age 14 to settle in South Korea without speaking the language or knowing anyone. “Music is a very tough industry and the competition gets stiffer every day with new pop acts. And as a solo artist, everything depends on me now, because I don’t have the buffer of my bandmates.
“When I was with CLC, if a song doesn’t do as well as expected, we share the burden together as a team. But now if something doesn’t go well, it’s on me and there’s no group support like before. I would even say that it feels a little empty at times, when I’m on stage and there’s no one dancing with me, and I have to fill the whole stage with my own energy, to share with the audience.”
But like any committed fighter, Sorn won’t rest until she gets her dues. And 2023 is set to be the year of her one-two punch as she unveils her new EP and tours South-east Asia to meet new and longtime fans.
She says: “I think the global music market is opening up to more Asian acts. You see more Western acts partnering with K-pop singers” (such as Dua Lipa with Blackpink and Charlie Puth with Jung Kook of BTS, among others). “But I hope there can be more collaborations between South-east Asian and K-pop artistes, because there hasn’t been enough of those.”
Several Thai singers have done well in the K-pop scene, including Lisa of Blackpink and BamBam of Got7 – despite at first not knowing the language and culture when they first set foot in Korea.
But Sorn says: “I feel like Thais tend to get along with everyone. We are generally humble, open-minded and non-judgmental, and that’s been the base characteristic of our people for thousands of years. We are not afraid of entering a new space and adopting a new culture. And I think that’s helped me and other Thai artistes find success in South Korea.”
CHRISTMAS WISH
Christmas has always been a slightly challenging affair. “As a K-pop idol, I’m usually working during the season. So I end up celebrating Christmas onstage with my audience – or else doing a live chat to celebrate with fans. The Christmas gifts I receive also tend to be gifts from fans – not from my bandmates. But this is what I want to do, and my Christmas wish for everyone else is that we all get to do whatever it is we dream of doing. If we have that, the world would be a much happier place.”
This Christmas, you’ll probably find Sorn on a stage or in a recording studio somewhere still working. “Because I started so young, I’ve seen everything from the business side of things and also the artiste side of things. It’s hard to make it in the music world and I don’t know how long I can be doing it. But while I can still create, while I can put out music, while I have fans who are moved and inspired by my music, I’m going to keep doing this until I have nothing left to give.”
Fighting words, indeed.
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