NEXZ’s “SAUCIN’”: The Taste of an identity still in the making
- Louis
- 13 hours ago
- 8 min read
SAUCIN’, the four track fourth Korean mini album by NEXZ was launched on August 24th, and it carries a very basic concept that represents the evolving identity of the group: having its own taste. Launched at 6 p.m. KST by JYP Entertainment, the album comes after Beat-Boxer, which was launched in October 2025 and after Mmchk, the single album which was launched in April 2026. The tracklist of the album is made up of LOCO, SAUCIN’, APPETITE, UPGRADE, 20 NOW and ALIENS; the self-titled track forms the title track of the album.
The language of SAUCIN’ is quite fun. “Saucin’ like this”, “We Saucin’”, “Spread it all” and “Squeeze it up” use the language of food to talk about identity. But there is something else beyond this colorful language and imagery. The group is not saying that it has defined itself; it is beginning to own the process.
This difference is what lends SAUCIN’ true meaning. The album does not have any overarching story regarding love, estrangement, social anxiety, self-discovery, or anything similar, let alone any basis for the imposition of such a story through official material. Instead, its coherence comes intuitively and not narratively. What NEXZ wants is to be itself, whether the music takes on a new form or not. The "sauce" is thus not just a trick but also an embodiment of artistic personality, something personal that can carry through different styles.
This concept carries forth the philosophy behind Mmchk. JYP had introduced the EP as a representation of the "NEXZ Way," meaning that NEXZ was told to enjoy itself and behave in accordance with its own instincts, rather than merely adhere to convention. SAUCIN' makes that concept more tangible through the concept of sauce.
Musically, the mini album thrives on diversity. According to NEXZ, SAUCIN’ and APPETITE are fresh and vibrant while LOCO and UPGRADE are catchier. Similarly, 20 NOW and ALIENS are lively and refreshing. In other words, the six tracks do not exist as variants of a fixed formula but as different articulations of the same band persona. In that sense, the identity of the album does not lie in any particular genre but in NEXZ’s movement across genres.
SAUCIN’ is the place where this idea is manifest the most. The song was inspired by a festival atmosphere and the desire of the members to elicit a bodily response from the crowd. As a result, SAUCIN’ cannot be separated from its performance. YUKI has emphasized the choreography at the beginning of the song, when the seven members express the concept of sauce in action.
This attention to performance is essential to NEXZ. The members have frequently recognized that the stage is one of the natural venues through which their identity can be revealed, and SAUCIN’ is no exception as it does not attempt to overthrow that artistic approach for something completely different. The associated marketing campaign, which includes the official music video, performance footage, and other video content, highlights this connection between sound, motion, and performance once again.
However, perhaps the most telling example of the development of NEXZ can be found outside of its title track. In fact, APPETITE contains some creative contribution by TOMOYA, HARU and HYUI, while TOMOYA was also involved in the writing and composition of 20 NOW. While these facts do not mean that SAUCIN’ is the album that has been created independently by NEXZ, they still show something else. Namely, the members of the band are slowly shifting from performers to more active participants in constructing their catalogue.
In APPETITE, we can clearly see how that happens. HARU brought his love for fast tempo hip hop house into that song, while the group members developed the lyrics on the basis of each other’s ideas. TOMOYA related the theme of appetite in the song to the hunger of NEXZ for making more music that people would want to listen to again, while still reaching for even higher goals. This makes the use of this metaphor double-edged. On the one hand, it shows the desire of the listener to come back to the music, while on the other – it represents the unwillingness of the group to consider their current situation good enough.
This is very important in the context of the artistic confidence of the album. NEXZ does not present itself as a finished piece of art. As HYUI has admitted, the group members may differ in their musical preferences, but they still understand what kind of a group they want NEXZ to be. Individuality of the members is thus not considered a problem to be solved, but rather a source of material for the formation of collective identity.
20 NOW takes that process into much more personal realms. In writing and composing the track, TOMOYA was motivated by the experience of being in one’s twenties, an age not defined by knowing everything but by constant learning. He wanted to capture his feelings back then, which could allow the members to go back to the song and recall how they used to view the world. It is a very straightforward concept, but it adds another dimension to the emotional landscape of the album. Whereas SAUCIN’ focuses on what NEXZ can give to an audience right now, 20 NOW focuses on what the members will one day want to remember about themselves.
This distinction saves the album from becoming all too extrovert. SAUCIN’ is all movement, APPETITE is desire and 20 NOW is memory. The album does not tell any emotional story from beginning to end, but it makes changes in temperature. It is dominated by freshness and dynamism, but there is something else hidden under this vibrant layer – NEXZ is still young enough to document its growth.
The order in which HARU advises to listen to these tracks makes the evolution even more interesting. He advises listening to APPETITE, SAUCIN', UPGRADE, LOCO, ALIENS and 20 NOW. That is not an alternative track-listing or an officially stated story. It is only one band member’s vision of how he listens to this album. But there is no doubt that this listening order has some sense: it starts with the theme of appetite and ends with the song on adulthood. And all in-between, NEXZ passes through the most immediate forms of energy before coming to the personal ones.
LOCO fits perfectly in this structure because it serves as an energetic opening track, while UPGRADE is the track that takes the place related by the band members with the addictive character of the album. ALIENS gives another dose of energy before 20 NOW concludes HARU's listening order. There is no basis for making complex interpretations of transitions, leitmotifs and symbolism in the album because there is no official information about it.
Metaphors in the culinary world, for example, can go much further than simply the title. “APPETITE” emphasizes the language of taste, while mentions of the word “sauce” provide the language necessary to talk about the whole project. The members of the group themselves use this language. HARU described the taste of the album as lemon, while HYUI compared the main song to sour cream. YU describes the development of the band in terms of taste, developing from sweet to umami from debut until 2026, whereas YUKI and SEITA compare their present taste to salt.
These metaphors do not replace the actual discussion of the music itself but are a reflection of what the band thinks about its own evolution. In NEXZ, it is not possible to define the group in terms of a single sound; they are trying to achieve something else.
Such a strategy is also due to the uniqueness of NEXZ’s place in the context of Asian pop music. The project was created through the collaboration of the JYP Entertainment and Sony Music Entertainment Japan companies that produced Nizi Project Season 2. The group has grown up in the Korean and Japanese markets simultaneously, as opposed to the exclusive affiliation to one of them. Moreover, out of seven members six are Japanese, and the members mentioned the peculiarities of K-pop and J-pop, expressing their intention to work where they can show their skills. Thus, their intercultural status is not merely a biographical characteristic, but a component of the context where their identity formed.
The SAUCIN’, therefore, is the Korean record and at the same time continuation of the overall transnational career of the group. The group’s official Japanese discography puts SAUCIN’ into the list of albums released in Japan, whereas the Korean discography recognizes SAUCIN’ as the fourth mini album after Mmchk and Beat-Boxer.
Similarly, the physical versions carry on the same idea in the actual product form. SAUCIN’ is sold in the MALLANG, BLACK, YELLOW and NEXZOO variations, with different combinations of photo books, collectible cards, and other stuff. The MALLANG version comes with a squish toy, the NEXZOO one comes with a plush keychain, while the other two come with their own photos and collectibles. The design itself is very obvious, but there is no need for any symbolic interpretation: it serves a much simpler purpose, making the personality of the album palpable.
The most interesting artistic gamble in SAUCIN’ is definitely not some meaningless experimentation. No hint at the rejection of accessibility or defiance towards the genre conventions is found in the official material about the album; everything that NEXZ did in the process is aimed at achieving the effect of immediate impact through performances and hooks. The gamble is much subtler and potentially more serious for a young band: can NEXZZ create an identity without limiting themselves to one sound?
There is no clear-cut answer as of yet, and that is exactly why this album should be looked into. A group at this point in their career can either rush into something fixed or give their identity time to evolve through choices made. The latter is chosen by SAUCIN’. Its six tracks do not push for any single sound to become the group’s trademark. Rather, the album questions if a group can be recognized through its sensibility, through performance language and fingerprints of its members becoming more and more visible.
This evolution becomes especially evident when compared to previous material of the group. While Mmchk was already presented in a way that showed the group’s “NEXZ Way,” the period before Beat-Boxer was marked by the statements of members wishing to take part in the creative process more actively. In SAUCIN’ this trend goes on with individual tracks by TOMOYA, HARU and HYUI being distinguishable rather than just talking about creative participation again.
What has not changed is equally important. NEXZ stays committed to performance, collective energy and music meant to be understandable instantly. The group does not abandon the characteristics that defined its identity in the first place. It only seeks to make them deeper by adding more of the members’ personal tastes and experience to them.
It is precisely for that reason that 20 NOW means much more than just another song on this six-song EP release. This song's significance stems from its ability to recognize and preserve the emotion of twenty so that the members could listen to the sound of their own past selves. In that respect, this impulse takes on an important role within the context of the rapid progress of this career, which implies that the group members realize that artistic identity does not only refer to the recognition by an audience but also to a measurement of that identity by artists themselves.
SAUCIN' can therefore be seen not as the time when NEXZ discovers its definitive sound but as the time when the group starts taking ownership of the matter of its artistic identity. The "sauce" here is not the result of the perfect recipe. It is the product of the interaction of seven personalities, musical talents, performance experience, cross-cultural movements, and increasing personal creative input.
Thus, what NEXZ presents in its debut is more revealing than revolutionary. The young group is trying not to create an entirely new concept of Korean pop music but to find its unique voice without falling into clichés.
For the time being, NEXZ has not yet found its own formula. But the group has already started working on its identity through APPETITE, which supplies the group with the necessary hunger, SAUCIN', which supplies the right attitude, the performances, which supply the energy, and 20 NOW, which helps to preserve the image of the people behind the performers.
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