Stray Kids Part 1: How Nine Trainees Became a Global K-Pop Group
Meet Stray Kids from the very beginning: the survival show that formed them, what their name really means, and how a nine-member trainee team debuted and later continued as an eight-member group.
A personal note from the Editor.
Six years ago, right in the middle of the pandemic, the Editor was working in Jakarta. There, I met a young Korean entrepreneur who had just started his own cosmetics brand. Business was tough, like it was for almost everyone back then. Some time later, his company signed a brand deal with a member of a K-pop group, right around the time that member was going through a controversy back home tied to accusations of verbal bullying from his middle school years. From what he later told me, that partnership became an important turning point for his business in Indonesia.
I am a little embarrassed to admit this now, but that was the first time I ever heard the name Stray Kids. When I looked them up afterward, I found out they were not some small, struggling act at all. They were a global K-pop group built by one of Korea’s biggest entertainment companies.
Today, we start a three-part series unpacking exactly how that group came to be.
Not Picked One by One. Picked as a Team.
Many televised idol survival shows pit trainees against one another, with only the “winners” earning a spot. Stray Kids used a notably different format.
In 2017, JYP Entertainment launched a reality survival show, also called Stray Kids, to introduce a new boy group. The first episode compared a male trainee project team, assembled by member Bang Chan, against a female trainee team. Once the male team was chosen as JYP’s next debut project, the nine of them faced a series of missions built around one central question: could all nine actually debut together?
That team-first idea came from an unusual source. Member Bang Chan had already been training at JYP for years and personally helped choose several of his future groupmates before the show even began, and even named the group and designed its logo. In other words, before the cameras rolled, the “captain” was already picking his own crew.
Along the way, two members, Lee Know and Felix, were actually eliminated during the show. But in the finale, both were reinstated, confirming all nine trainees for the debut lineup.
Before the fame, they were just nine trainees, betting everything on each other.
What “Stray Kids” Actually Means
The name is not random. It expresses the idea of young people straying from a prescribed path and pursuing their own direction, breaking away from convention to carve out an identity on their own terms.
That theme runs through the group’s whole identity. Members Bang Chan, Changbin, and Han had already formed a pre-debut hip-hop and production trio called 3RACHA before Stray Kids came together. That trio went on to become the group’s principal production unit, writing and producing a large portion of Stray Kids’ own music. Extensive, sustained member participation in songwriting and production became one of the group’s defining features from day one.
Debut: District 9 and a Dark, Defiant Sound
Stray Kids held their debut showcase in Seoul on March 25, 2018. Their first mini album, I Am Not, and its title track, “District 9,” were officially released the next day, March 26. Before that, the survival show itself had already introduced the group’s rougher, moodier sound: the music video for pre-debut single “Hellevator” was unveiled shortly before the program premiered, with the digital single released on November 1, 2017, while the show was still airing.
Right from the start, the group leaned into intense, genre-mixing production: heavy bass, industrial synths, and lyrics about pressure, rebellion, and self-worth. It was a bold choice for a rookie group, and it set Stray Kids apart from softer, more polished debuts happening around them.
Want to hear where it all started?
▶ Search for Stray Kids ‘District 9’ MV on YouTube
The Lineup, Then and Now
Stray Kids debuted with nine members. In October 2019, JYP Entertainment announced that Woojin had left the group due to personal circumstances and that his exclusive contract had been terminated. Stray Kids has continued as an eight-member group ever since:
- Bang Chan — leader, producer
- Lee Know
- Changbin — producer
- Hyunjin
- Han — producer
- Felix
- Seungmin
- I.N
We will dig deeper into each member’s story, along with the group’s biggest hits and awards, later in this series.
Where to Go From Here
If you enjoy origin stories of K-pop’s biggest names, our BTS and TWICE series trace similarly unconventional paths to global success.
Coming up in Part 2: how Stray Kids grew from a rookie group with a dark, defiant sound into one of the biggest touring acts in the world.
— The Editor