{"id":166821,"date":"2026-05-16T12:39:46","date_gmt":"2026-05-16T19:39:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.musicmundial.com\/en\/?p=166821"},"modified":"2026-05-16T12:39:46","modified_gmt":"2026-05-16T19:39:46","slug":"former-nct-member-mark-to-explore-a-solo-career-in-the-united-states-with-def-jam-recordings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.musicmundial.com\/en\/former-nct-member-mark-to-explore-a-solo-career-in-the-united-states-with-def-jam-recordings\/","title":{"rendered":"Former NCT member Mark to explore a solo career in the United States with Def Jam Recordings"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Former NCT<\/strong> member <strong>Mark Lee<\/strong> may be getting ready for a new career beginning in the United States following his departure from SM Entertainment. Speculation about the Canadian singer\u2019s plans started shortly after April 8, 2026, when he officially terminated his exclusive contract with the company, leaving NCT and its sub-units.\u00a0 On April 3, 2026, he shared a handwritten letter online discussing a \u201cnew chapter\u201d in his life and his longtime interest in writing music in English.<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"Spotify Embed: The Firstfruit - The 1st Album\" style=\"border-radius: 12px\" width=\"100%\" height=\"352\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen allow=\"autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; fullscreen; picture-in-picture\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/embed\/album\/6c3cEkKxXpqpo8vNRWrv8s?si=XkLqPnPTQ76-cIZpYHW4-Q&amp;utm_source=oembed\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>After this, fans quickly noticed that<strong> Tunji Balogun<\/strong>, the chairman and C<strong>EO of Def Jam Recordings<\/strong>, followed Mark on social media. This type of online interaction was seen as a sign of business talks or future collaborations. The rumors gained more attention because Def Jam Recordings is strongly connected to hip hop and R&amp;B artists, two genres that are connected to Mark\u2019s style. Before joining Def Jam, Balogun worked at RCA Records and helped the careers of stars such as SZA, Khalid, and Bryson Tiller. Mark\u2019s background as a Canadian artist who speaks fluent English also makes him a strong candidate for a music career in North America.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-pullquote\">\n        <blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Tunji Balogun, CEO of Def Jam Recordings (recording label for Justin Bieber) has followed <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/MARK?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#MARK<\/a> on instagram. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/4RVbNFqH7l\">pic.twitter.com\/4RVbNFqH7l<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; MARK LEE BASE (@Marklee_base) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Marklee_base\/status\/2045973902372086161?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">April 19, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n        <\/figure>\n        \n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Another clue appeared on April 23, 2026, when rising singer Genia uploaded a video featuring Mark inside a recording studio. She captioned the clip, \u201cGenia x Mark Lee !! When KPop &amp; POP Meet,\u201d which makes fans believe new music is on the way. Genia signed with Def Jam in 2024 and recently released her single \u201cDoomsday.\u201d Meanwhile, Mark already proved his solo power with his April 2025 album \u201cThe Firstfruit,\u201d which sold more than 540,000 copies during its first week. The album had R&amp;B, hip-hop, and pop influences, proving Mark\u2019s versatility as a soloist.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Former NCT member Mark Lee may be getting ready for a new career beginning in the United States following his departure from SM Entertainment. Speculation about the Canadian singer\u2019s plans started shortly after April 8, 2026, when he officially terminated his exclusive contract with the company, leaving NCT and its sub-units.\u00a0 On April 3, 2026, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3104,"featured_media":166828,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2264,16,7],"tags":[938],"tmauthors":[3734],"class_list":{"0":"post-166821","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"category-kpop","9":"category-news","10":"tag-nct"},"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicmundial.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166821","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicmundial.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicmundial.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicmundial.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3104"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicmundial.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=166821"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicmundial.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166821\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":166830,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicmundial.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166821\/revisions\/166830"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicmundial.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/166828"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicmundial.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=166821"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicmundial.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=166821"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicmundial.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=166821"},{"taxonomy":"tmauthors","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicmundial.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tmauthors?post=166821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}