The world’s greatest songs. By the people who made them.
EJAE I
SONG: GOLDEN – HUNTR/X (EJAE, AUDREY NUNA & REI AMI) & K-POP DEMON HUNTERS CAST
Netflix film K-Pop Demon Hunters has been nothing short of a phenomenon in 2025, its soundtrack spawning many hits, none more monstrous than the million-selling No.1 Golden. Music Week meets co-writer, singer and vocal producer Ejae to tell the story of a song that has had a seismic impact on her career and the industry alike... INTERVIEW: BEN HOMEWOOD
was in Korea doing songwriting camps for K-Pop Demon Hunters and also worked on the songs at home in New York, mostly from my closet! It’s my little corner, my safety zone. I vocal produce and record myself, so I’m very flexible with where I can work. I sang all the demos except for two songs on the soundtrack and for Golden I was also vocal producing and did all of the harmonies. I was driving to the dentist when I came up with the melody. It was really early and I was tired, but in a chill mood, very normal. I was actually getting a gold filling, because I ate too much candy – I have a lot of cavities! It’s interesting how things work: the title became Golden. The track had this nice, bittersweet kind of sound and sometimes the inspiration just comes instantly. The hook came out really fast, but to finish the whole song took a lot of fine tuning over a month or two. Because this is a film, the storyline matters; it’s not just a pop song, it’s integrated as a huge part of the narrative. So, that took a lot of back and forth with the director.
With the lyrics, we knew the scene had to have the word ‘gold’ in it and the musical directors told us the character Rumi needed to hit a high note, almost unrealistically high. So it is all on purpose that Golden is really hard to sing! I didn’t just make it hard, I would never do that! [Laughs]. I truly found my range writing these songs, I did not know I could hit notes that high. The director wanted Rumi to have incredible vocal range, so I had to stretch myself and do vocal gymnastics. It is a difficult song, the ranges are pretty crazy. I’m also more of a low-tone singer, I have more alto, so hitting the note was crazy. But also the line distribution, because I’m singing a lot of the parts, breathing was very important. I also went into the song personally, it was emotional. I cried singing the demo because I needed that song during that time. I was going through a hard time, I felt like I wanted to give up songwriting because things weren’t really working out. So, Golden was important to me. The lyric ‘gonna be, gonna be golden’ came out of a gibberish melody I had and suddenly it felt like magic, it was meant to be. I related to the lyrics because it’s a hopeful song and what Rumi is going through with hiding her shame and pushing that aside to focus on her dream was totally relatable to me as a former K-pop trainee. That thing of putting your best foot forward, working hard and yearning for a dream. Golden stands out because it’s very different from a musical standpoint, it’s a modern pop song. My co-writer Mark Sonnenblick is from a musical-theatre background and I’m from a K-Pop background
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and that hybrid was very important. It was about making sure the lyric is still part of the story while still trying to have a very pop approach to it. Pop music today is very focused on the artists and their personal journeys and things being about themselves. Songs are not really about something like hope; they’re usually about, like, being a baddie or personal relationships, break-up songs or love songs. But this song is very… It was a hard song to write. It’s a fine line [and could be seen as] cringey, but the way the movie shows it – the character build, the depth, the lyric and the personal touch – creates something that maybe people want, a song that’s hopeful. You don’t really see that in pop music today. Also, I study and listen to a lot of pop music and, chord-wise and melodically, it mostly stays in the same range, whereas Golden is very different. You saw that a long time ago in the ’70s and ’80s, where things were more melodic. So it’s bringing that back. Golden is a great example of K-Pop, too, because Korea likes to experiment. K-Pop is very maximalist, very pristine and I think Golden is a representation of that. Also, just the vocals, you know – we’re vocalling on this song! [Laughs]. When I saw it in the scene for the first time… Oof! It definitely hit different. When we wrote it, we said, ‘Ooh, this is a smayyash!’ [Laughs]. But its success depends on whether the film is a hit, right? When you’re writing for film, there are so many different layers: you’re not just writing a song and then giving it to an artist. In a way, it’s also freeing. You don’t have to think, ‘Hey, what are we writing today?’ because you know exactly what you have to write about. It’s just trying to execute what the director is envisioning to make sure you hit the bull’s eye. When it came out, I took a flight and we got off the plane at night, and my fiancé was looking at his phone. He’s a huge Reddit guy. He was like, ‘Babe, so many people are talking about you.’ Then I got on my TikTok, and it was all K-Pop Demon Hunters. I thought it was just my algorithm, but no! We then saw this kid watching the music video and singing. If people on your street in New York are paying attention, it’s like, ‘Okay, this is big!’ Just recently I was in Las Vegas in an Uber, wearing a facemask and all, and Golden came on the radio. I started crying, it was so surreal.
I got in on this project as a songwriter and was very grateful that the director asked me to sing as Rumi. I just didn’t expect this amount of attention, or people actually being interested in me singing. That’s new territory I’m looking into, because I never really saw myself as an artist, but it’s something that might happen soon, with a single…
PHOTO: Universal Music Group UK
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