Kwon Eunbi & Heo Yong Joon on the Long Game, Chapters Left Behind and the Beginning of Something Greater
Categoria: Musica
A few days ahead of FIFA World Cup 2026, the singer and the footballer are each at a threshold — one opening a new label chapter, the other eyeing a move abroad.
Por Billboard | 11/06/2026
This story is part of Billboard’s Global World Cup Series, a collection of 11 cover stories which pairs top soccer stars across the world competing in the 2026 FIFA World Cup with highly-touted musicians in accompanying countries. This summer, the World Cup arrives bigger than it has ever been: 48 teams, three host nations, the first edition played across the United States, Canada and Mexico together. South Korea travels to it for the 11th time in a row — a streak that runs unbroken to 1986 and still carries the memory of 2002, when the team reached the semifinals as co-hosts. For a few weeks every four years, an entire nation keeps the same schedule, wears the same color and shouts the same three words at the same instant: “Oh Pilseung Korea.” A World Cup is a scored event — walkout anthems, stadium singalongs, the chant that turns tens of thousands of strangers into a single voice. Football and pop have been two of Korea’s loudest exports of the century, each carrying the country’s name abroad. And underneath the noise, the two run on the same engine: long, invisible preparation spent on one public moment, judged the second it arrives. For its FIFA World Cup Edition, Billboard Korea puts two performers in one frame who rarely share it: singer Kwon Eunbi and footballer Heo Yong Joon. The surface logic is obvious — a stage, a pitch, two people who work in front of crowds. The more telling logic is timing: both arrive on the front edge of a new chapter. Related Joey Bada$ & Miles Robinson Compare Notes on What Drives Them & Why ‘Athletes Love Artists’ Ahead of World Cup After Wave of Criticism Against Julieta Venegas over Soccer Song, Mexican President Speaks Out Megan Thee Stallion, David Guetta, EJAE & Andrea Bocelli Team Up for FIFA World Cup 2026 Anthem 'DNA': Listen Kwon spent the spring changing homes, leaving her label of eight years to sign with RBW, the house of MAMAMOO and ONEWE. She comes in as a soloist who has already shown she can will a song up the charts on her own terms — “Underwater,” the lead single from her 2022 EP Lethality , became a delayed hit roughly eight months after release, reignited by a 2023 Waterbomb set that made her a fixture on the summer festival circuit and earned the “Summer Queen” tag. Heo, the striker fans call “Heonaldo” for the Ronaldo-style celebration that trails his goals, has chased the next finish across nearly a decade in the K League — a 2016 debut at Jeonnam Dragons, a 2017 national-team call-up — and is now eyeing a move abroad. One works to a beat, the other to a whistle. Both are betting the best of it is still ahead. This edition brings music and sport into a single frame. How does it feel to be part of it? Kwon Eunbi: I think music and sports are deeply alike in the way they bring people’s emotions together. The World Cup especially is such a special event — people all over the world cheering together in the same moment. It feels genuinely meaningful and excit