PERSONA.
PERSONA (연기),
Living One Beat Late
Step into the script of my life.
Live into my summers and winters.
Experience my beat, my tempo, my melody.
The Korean word 연기 (yeon-ki) contains 3 meanings: 1) acting, 2) smoke, and 3) delay.
These are the three ways I understood myself while making these songs. I wanted listeners to try my tempo for a moment. Not to figure me out, but to live inside the perspective.
Release: 10/23/25 · 7 tracks · 17:13
Q&A — PERSONA (연기)
Who are your biggest inspirations?
My inspiration comes from a lot of random places.
For instance, I watched Cars 3 recently. It’s about this guy who loses his sauce, then gets it back by remembering who he actually is. That story stuck with me for a long time — because I never want to forget where Im from and who my people are.
Musically, when I first started, I studied the basics through artists like Nas and Jay-Z. Then over time I started paying attention to artists from my generation, like Travis Scott, and how they build a whole world around their music.
Looking at my future, that’s what I want. I want to make my own world that listeners fall into. I want to become a star. I want to be someone like Drake, someone like Kanye. I want to become someone who has the power to bring attention to people
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What motivated you to create this album? What was your vision?
There was a point where my life felt like I was caught in a loop.
Everything around me—friends, relationships, school/work—felt like seasons passing by. And I felt like I was always a step late… like I was delayed.
To share that feeling, I started my fashion brand Latency Studio— my first way of sharing that delay with the world.
But after my brand started getting attention in school, things started changing. People treated me differently. Some friends would say, “I miss the old Taylor.” They said I’d changed.
Around that time, when I was alone, I kept replaying this playlist on my phone—basically a folder of my own songs. The playlist was titled 연기—meaning 1) acting, 2) smoke, and 3) delay in Korean— three ways my life felt that moment.
To answer the question, I didn’t have a clear vision of an album. To me, these songs were just like a number of summers, a number of winters I lived through.
I never thought I’d actually release them, but eventually it clicked: dropping music could be like dropping clothes. Just a different form.
Why did you choose that name for your album?
I like words that can turn into punchlines by themselves—words with multiple meanings.
연기 (Yeon-ki) is like that. In Korean, it can mean acting, it can mean smoke, and to me it also connects to delay—like something arrives late, like a feeling that hits after it already passed.
Even the English title works like that. Persona is obviously “persona,” but you can also read it like “person A.” I like hiding easter eggs like that inside the album. It makes the project feel more like a puzzle, not just a product.
But sometimes Im a bit disappointed that not many people notice those Easter eggs… but at the same time, that’s kind of the point. Not everything should to be obvious.
What’s your favorite piece on the album, and why?
GOVEO.
Sound-wise, I tried something new—rapping over an afrobeat/reggaeton type beat. I didn’t hear many people or artists around me exploring it like that, especially in Korean hip-hop, so putting it as the first track was my way of surprising the listeners.
When I first played it for rappers and hip-hop people, I could feel some of them were uncomfortable. Like, “This isn’t rap.” And honestly, watching them get annoyed made me want it more. I was like—why can’t I rap on this beat? If it sounds like “noise” to them, I want to bring that noise to the mainstream.
Meaning-wise, it’s written like a letter. GOVEO is like a nickname of one of my friends, and the song is about me saying what I couldn’t say directly—using music to say it without forcing it in conversations.
Which song changed the most between versions?
Probably BALANCE.
Whenever I make a new song, I send it to my friends because I’m excited. Some never reply, some give me feedback.
BALANCE used to have a totally different beat—slower BPM, different flow and rhythm. Another version even had a feature, but that version didn’t end up being released.
I change my music as I change myself. Not just the sound, though; sometimes I get to a point where I don’t resonate with the vibe anymore, and when that happens, I stop feeling attached to the song.