Changbin

Stray Kids' main rapper and one third of 3RACHA, the in-house trio that writes the group's music. Onstage he's all gravel and punch; offstage he's a nonstop meme factory.

Born Seo Changbin on August 11, 1999, he grew up in Bora-dong in Yongin, just south of Seoul. Funny thing: it started with dance, not rap. In fifth grade he danced to B1A4's O.K at a school camp talent show, the crowd went wild, and he was hooked on the stage. By high school he was running the dance club and teaching his friends choreography he'd picked up himself. The pivot came at an audition academy. About a month into vocal lessons, his teacher told him his singing sounded like rapping and nudged him toward the mic. He commuted between Yongin and Seoul to practice, then passed the JYP Entertainment audition with a beat he'd made and bars he'd written. Inside the company he was soon nicknamed the "rap genius." Also, fun fact: as a kid he was a math whiz who kept winning school competitions and served as class president year after year.

Before debut, back in 2016, he entered Show Me the Money season 5. The editors framed him in another contestant's retry scene under a caption about "cold stares at the second attempt," and the members have been roasting him with it ever since. When news broke in 2020 that he'd appear on season 9, fans flipped it to "warm stares at Seo Changbin's second attempt." In between came trainee life, and in March 2018 he debuted with Stray Kids.

His rap has a clear signature. Low, heavy tone, with a raspy scratch he saves for the exact spots he wants to hit rather than smearing it over a whole verse, and diction so clean you can follow his fastest lines. The drawn-out "yeah~" he drops before a verse is instantly recognizable to any STAY. The twist is that he can really sing. His voice softens into a light, clear tenor, which is why he took high notes on the pre-debut track Hellevator, and on King of Mask Singer in 2020 he carried Tablo's Tomorrow alone, switching between rap and vocals. After every year-end award show, Korean forums fill up with posts asking who that rapper was.

Above all, he writes. With Bang Chan and Han, he's behind most of Stray Kids' lyrics and composition, including God's Menu and S-Class. As of September 2026 he had 209 songs registered with Korea's music copyright association, sixth among all idols. Number one is Bang Chan, and number seven is Han. Three members of one group sitting that high on the list says everything about why they're the go-to example of idols who write their own. His rap name is SPEARB, though he once said that if he could rename himself he'd go with "MC Haribo," since the old name feels too sharp and he loves the gummies.

His meme output is basically official. He was the only member who stuck with a Samsung Galaxy phone no matter what, fans dubbed him the guy with unshakable convictions, and in 2023 Samsung literally built a Galaxy ad around the joke. Later, when the whole group signed on as Galaxy accessory models, every member switched phones. That same year, in a self-produced clip, he turned the "Oh my oh my God" line in NewJeans' OMG into "eomma eomma-ga" (roughly "my mom, my mom did"), and it blew up on Twitter until even the NewJeans members were copying it. The nickname list keeps growing, and Korean fans joke that he was born with a comedy ladle instead of a mere spoon. At JYP he's considered part of the label's unofficial comedy crew with NMIXX's Haewon and ITZY's Chaeryeong, and in October 2025 that trio finally shared a screen on the JYP episode of the variety web show Channel Fullmoon.

The gap between his sharp-eyed stage stare and the dimples that pop out when he laughs is a whole fall-down-the-rabbit-hole moment for new fans. His nickname "Dwaekki," a mash-up of pig (dwaeji) and rabbit (tokki), became his SKZOO character. Years of lifting built the arms he's known for, and he's said regular workouts eased the allergies he'd had since childhood. He calls himself the lowest-ranked member because the younger ones tease him nonstop, yet he's openly soft for them. When Felix arrived in Korea as a lost trainee, Changbin looked after him, which is why Felix sticks close to him to this day, and he ran a string of live streams with Hyunjin under the name "Hyunnie Binnie." Plot twist: he's also the member with the most aegyo. When the pre-debut survival show revealed his family home, complete with a chandelier, fans promptly named him the Chandelier Prince.

His solo catalog is growing too: DOODLE and Streetlight (featuring Bang Chan) on 2022's SKZ-REPLAY, ULTRA on the 2024 mixtape HOP, a feature on ITZY's VAY, plus Galaxy campaign songs including a duet with veteran rocker Kim Chang-wan. He gives quietly and generously, donating 100 million won for victims of the Türkiye-Syria earthquake and another 100 million won to Samsung Medical Center on his 2026 birthday.