‘I never imagined this!’ How KPop Demon Hunters could make history at the Grammys and the Oscars

As the film’s megahit song Golden looks likely to sweep everything in awards season, its singer Ejae explains why she’s ready to step out from behind her animated alter ego

‘The directors were crying, the producer was crying, and I thought: Oh my gosh, this is an incredible musical world.” It was February 2025, and Ian Eisendrath was conducting an orchestra through the final flourishes for the KPop Demon Hunters soundtrack. He knew that the team had built something special – “but I never thought it would be like this,” he laughs, marvelling at what came next.

Mere weeks after its release in June, the animated film – about Korean girl band Huntr/x who battle soul-hungry demons through song – became Netflix’s most-watched title ever. The film’s soundtrack, a fleet of emotionally charged, devilishly catchy hits crafted by real K-pop heavyweights, became a platinum-rated phenomenon all its own.

The film made history when four of its tracks hit the US Top 10 simultaneously, and soaring lead single Golden was the world’s most-streamed new song last year. It has already very appropriately won a Golden Globe and is up for best international song at the Brit awards. Not since the Lion King’s Circle of Life has a song from an animated film been nominated for the Academy award for best song and song of the year at the Grammys. This weekend, if the bookies are right and Golden wins both, it will be the first original song from an animation ever to do so.

Eisendrath, the film’s executive music producer, credits an unusually collaborative songwriting process – and K-pop’s innate theatricality – with the song’s appeal. “K-pop is larger than life, a whiplash in the best way possible,” he enthuses. “Something can happen, musically, for eight measures, and then you snap to a whole other vibe.”

Huntr/x’s sonic battle against demonic boyband Saja Boys demanded thrilling, radio-friendly hits that pushed the story forward with every beat. It also demanded genuine K-pop credibility, provided by Seoul’s taste-making The Black Label (home to Blackpink’s Rosé and her own Grammy-nominated megahit APT.), and a who’s-who of independent hit makers.

Danny Chung, an A&R and songwriter with a decade of chart-toppers, co-wrote the Saja Boys’ bubbly, pastel-hued introduction, Soda Pop. He describes working on the film and voicing the husky Baby Saja as a “dream come true” and a “much more engaged” process than he anticipated, due to the challenge of putting character arcs before musical taste or trends.

“Soda Pop isn’t exactly The Black Label’s signature sound,” he confesses. “In one of our weekly calls, Ian expressed his concern with where Soda Pop was because it felt ‘too cool’ sonically. One of The Black Label’s head producers said: ‘So make it a bit tacky by design?’ There was an overwhelming ‘Yes!’” Embracing the cheese was a risk to their street cred that paid off: Soda Pop had to be cutesy, to emphasise the boyband’s sinister, soul-reaping second act – and has since been certified platinum.

Saja Boys’ switch-up from sweet to edgy is itself a classic K-pop trope, as Ejae, the lead vocalist on Golden, explains: “[Groups] do a 180 and turn into sexy, cool guys – it’s when interest from fans turns into obsession.” A writer for major Korean girl groups (Twice, Red Velvet, Aespa), Ejae was drawn to the film’s deep celebration of Korean culture – in particular how Huntr/x’s powers are inspired by Korean shamans’ use of bells and voices to ward away, or invite in, spirits – and its nuanced approach to a story of good versus evil.

Rumi, Huntr/x’s leader, harbours a secret, and Golden’s victorious lyrics clash with her reality: burnt out, isolated and ashamed. These emotional complexities inspired Ejae to put a lot of herself into the lyrics, drawing on the 10 years she spent training to be a K-pop idol before becoming a songwriter instead, as she explains.

“I always connected with Rumi and [her bandmates] Zoey and Mira. Mira being a black sheep in the family – that’s me. Being from two different places and not knowing your identity, that’s absolutely me as well.” Ejae was born in Seoul and raised in New Jersey before returning to South Korea. “And Rumi being really hard-working, but also putting herself through a lot of pressure and perfectionism, that’s exactly me, too.”

But when Eisendrath asked her to sing as Rumi for the soundtrack, she needed “a lot” of convincing. “Performing has always been a scary thing,” she admits, “but Ian helped me come out of my little turtle shell!”

Recording in the studio was one thing, but embodying Rumi – and nailing Golden’s heart-leaping vocal gymnastics – on live TV, for an audience of millions? Ejae says she never saw it coming. Huntr/x’s first IRL performance on the US late-night talkshow The Tonight Show united Ejae with singers Audrey Nuna and Rei Ami, who voice her bandmates, and she describes it as “climbing Mount Everest”. Yet singing with them, and the fans, proved “incredibly spiritual,” she says. “Stage fright is real, but I was able to find the beauty in performing.”

For Eisendrath, watching Huntr/x come to life from backstage was deeply emotional: “Life imitating art. It’s incredibly meaningful that Huntr/x are being viewed as artists, as opposed to characters from a film.” They’ve since performed on the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade and at Los Angeles’s Jingle Ball, and fans are hungry for more concerts, more songs – but Netflix remains tight-lipped on any further plans for Huntr/x, or the franchise in general. Bloomberg reported that a sequel is slated for 2029, but Netflix would not confirm or deny this to the Guardian.

In the meantime, all eyes remain on the real-life talent. Huntr/x’s popularity has supercharged the profiles of Ami and Nuna, who have gained tens of millions of listeners, and the soundtrack’s success is likely to have contributed to The Black Label gaining almost $68m in investment ahead of a rumoured IPO stock launch; label head Teddy Park recently received a commendation from the Korean prime minister in the awards for Overseas Expansion Merit.

But for Ejae, KPop Demon Hunters’ success goes deeper than the numbers. With a growing confidence, she is slowly releasing her own solo material, after years of writing for others. “I’m so grateful,” she says, softly. “A dream I had shelved for a very long time, that I never thought I needed to open up again … is open.”