Lee Hyun

Lee Hyun (born November 8, 1983) is a South Korean singer. He debuted in 2007 as a member of the co-ed vocal group 8Eight, which disbanded in 2014. He was also a member of the disbanded vocal duo Homme from 2010 to 2018. Lee is currently signed to Big Hit Music as a solo artist. He introduced his alter ego Midnatt in March 2023, through the release of the single "Masquerade".

2007–2014: 8Eight
Lee joined Big Hit Entertainment as a trainee in 2005 and signed with the company in 2007. That same year, he debuted as part of the co-ed group 8Eight, alongside Baek Chan and Joo Hee. The group released three studio albums between 2007 and 2009, and two extended plays in 2010 and 2011. On December 21, 2014, Big Hit announced that Baek and Joo's contracts had expired and further promotional activities for the group had been suspended. The label stated that the members remained friends and did not rule out the possibility of them reuniting in the future. During its seven years in the industry, 8Eight had become one of the top vocal groups in Korea and dominated the coffee house scene.

On January 31, 2021, Big Hit announced that 8Eight would make a comeback in February with a new commemorative single composed by "Hitman" Bang and Wonderkid for the 10th anniversary of "Without A Heart". On February 6, Lee uploaded a new photo of 8Eight to his Twitter account, teasing the impending release. The song was released on February 7 and marked the group's first time singing together in six years since unofficially disbanding.

2009–present: Solo activities
Lee released his debut single as a solo artist, "30분전" ("30 Minutes Ago"), on September 8, 2009, in both digital and physical format. A duet featuring singer Lim Jeong-hee, it was written by Bang Si-hyuk as the final part of his Goodbye trilogy of songs that included Baek Ji-young's "총 맞은 것처럼" ("Like Being Hit By a Bullet") and 8Eight's "심장이 없어" ("Without a Heart"). An accompanying music video, starring actress Sunwoo Sun, was released alongside the single without any copyright restrictions to encourage viewers to share it freely. Lee gave the premiere performance of "30 Minutes Ago" on Music Bank on September 11. He also participated in the original soundtrack for the KBS2 television series Invincible Lee Pyung Kang, contributing the single "숨이 막혀" ("I Can't Breathe"), which was released on November 2. In 2010, Lee recorded the song "왜 나를 울려요" ("You Make Me Cry") for the soundtrack of the SBS television series Big Thing; it was released as a single on October 27. His debut solo album The Healing Echo followed two years later.

In 2019, Lee contributed the single "You Are Here" to the BTS World: Original Soundtrack; the soundtrack was released globally on June 28. Lee renewed his contract with Big Hit in March 2021 and opened a YouTube channel in celebration of his 14th anniversary with the company that same month. He participated in the soundtrack for season two of Love (ft. Marriage and Divorce), contributing the ballad "Deep Sadness", which was released as the soundtrack's fifth single on June 26. The following month, Lee released his first single since the renewal of his contract, "Moon in the Ocean".

Lee introduced his alter ego Midnatt in May 2023 with the release of the digital single "Masquerade" through Big Hit and Hybe Corporation's interactive media technology subsidiary Hybe IM. As Midnatt, Lee is the first artist to debut as part of Hybe Corp's "Project L", a music project utilizing AI voice synthesis—the company acquired voice design technology created by sound AI startup Supertone in 2021—and extended reality technologies for music and visual content production. A synthwave song comparing Lee's conflicting emotions to a lovers relationship, his Korean vocals were translated into English, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, and Vietnamese via AI, allowing for the simultaneous release of multi-lingual versions of the song alongside the original; the female voice featured in the song was also derived from Lee's vocals.

2010–2018: Homme
In 2010, Lee became part of the collaboration duo Homme with Changmin of 2AM. They released the single "I Was Able To Eat Well" featuring Lee Chae-young. Changmin later signed an exclusive contract with Big Hit in 2015. Following its expiration at the end of January 2018, Big Hit announced on February 1 that Changmin had chosen to leave the company and open his own agency; Lee remained with the label as a soloist.

Personal life
Lee enlisted in the South Korean military on October 8, 2012, in order to carry out his mandatory military service. He received five weeks of basic training before serving as an active-duty soldier for 21 months. While enlisted, Lee co-starred in the military musical The Promise, co-produced by the Ministry of National Defense and the Korea Musical Theatre Association in commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the Korean War armistice. The musical ran from January 9 to 20, 2013, at the National Theater of Korea and co-starred actors Ji Hyun-woo, Kim Mu-yeol, and Jung Tae-woo, and singers Leeteuk of Super Junior and Yoon Hak of Supernova.