'Baby Shark's Geonroung Park makes K-pop debut with Joohoney
What's the story
Geonroung Park, the boy behind the global sensation Baby Shark, has made his K-pop debut. The 17-year-old released his debut single, Wave, on Thursday, featuring Joohoney from Monsta X. This is the same K-pop group whose members had famously danced to Baby Shark during its viral phase.
Career transition
'Now, I want to share my own voice...'
Park, who was just seven when he filmed the iconic Baby Shark dance video, is now ready to share his own music.
"Ten years ago, I was dancing next to Baby Shark," he told The Guardian.
"Now, I want to share my own voice and the stories I've written myself."
The song Wave starts with the Baby Shark tune before transitioning into an electropop sound.
Viral success
The 'Baby Shark' phenomenon
The Baby Shark video, featuring Park, was uploaded in June 2016 and has since garnered more than 17.2 billion views on YouTube.
It became a viral sensation in 2017 with the #BabySharkChallenge in Indonesia and was further popularized by K-pop stars like Blackpink and Twice performing its choreography on TV shows.
By 2019, it had reached No. 32 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and No. 6 on the UK singles chart.
Artistic evolution
Park views his debut as a new beginning
The Pinkfong Company, the South Korean children's entertainment firm that turned Baby Shark into a worldwide franchise, views Park's single as an authentic growth story rather than a typical idol debut.
Park himself feels it is "more like a new beginning than a one-off project."
He briefly returned last year in a short video celebrating the song's 10th anniversary.