“Golden,” the gorgeous anthem at the center of the Netflix phenomenon KPop Demon Hunters, has a less-than obvious musical inspiration: The Notorious B.I.G.’s breakout 1994 hit “Juicy.”

So says Chris Appelhans, who co-directed the film with Maggie Kang. Kang created the concept for KPop Demon Hunters, which follows a trio of young women who sing in the megagroup Huntr/x while secretly battling demons. It’s the most-watched Netflix film ever.

In a new oral history of KPop Demon Hunters for The New York Times, Kang, Appelhans and other key creatives behind the film detailed their inspirations and influences over the nine-year process of bringing it to life.

One key to everything was the songwriting of “Golden,” in which Huntr/x tell the story of their friendship, and resist the dark side of KPop.

For “Golden,” Appelhans explained, “our references were a Biggie track called ‘Juicy.’ There was Drake, Eminem, Lil Wayne. Those were songs about starting as nobodies and finding yourself through music.”

He’s not saying “Golden” sounds like “Juicy,” mind you — just that “Golden,” like “Juicy,” is a song about rising up and achieving your dreams. Here’s “Juicy” and here’s “Golden.”

The Notorious B.I.G., who was born Christopher Wallace and also went by Biggie Smalls, died in a 1997 shooting that is still the subject of endless speculation. He was just 24.

He’s mostly been in the news lately because of memories of his association with Sean Combs, who signed him to his Bad Boy Records label. So it’s nice to see Biggie get some love for inspiring a new generation of KPop and hip-hop fans.

KPop Demon Hunters and the Making of “Golden”

KPop Demon Hunters‘ love of hip-hop is clear from the start: Huntr/x‘s youngest member is rapper and lyricist Zoey, whose speaking voice is provided by Ji-young Yoo and whose singing voice belongs to South Korean singer-rapper Rei Ami. And the song “Takedown,” the ultimate anti-demon diss track, is basically a hip-hop song.

Singer-songwriter Ejae told the New York Times that cracking the song “Golden” was one of the biggest challenges of the film. In addition to handling the singing voice of Huntr/x leader Rumi, she co-wrote “Golden” and the Huntr/x songs “How It’s Done,” and “What It Sounds Like” — as well as “Your Idol,” by Huntr/x demonic boy band rivals, the Saja Boys.

Kang told the Times that the film went through about eight versions of “Golden” before landing on the one in the film.

“The last one came in, I was in a car in Vancouver going to the airport. I heard the first tingly notes and I knew, that was it. Not even the lyrics yet, just the track. When we asked EJAE to go as high as she could with her voice, she was like, I hope I don’t ever have to perform this,” Kang said.

Ejae told the Times: “It’s not a comfortable register for me. I can hit the notes, obviously. But it would be impossible to sing live. There’s no breathing [room] — 90 percent of it is Rumi singing. That’s unrealistic as hell.”

Everything worked out fantastically, of course: “Golden,” the second single from the film’s soundtrack, hit number one on the Billboard Global 200, became the longest-lasting number one song by a fictional group on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100, and became the third song in South Korea to achieve a 2025 “perfect all-kill.” (A perfect all-kill is when a song simultaneously places at number one on the real-time, daily, and weekly components of iChart, an aggregator of all major South Korean music streaming.)

And “the film”Golden” is very much in contention in the Oscars race for best original song, one of many categories in which KPop Demon Hunters is expected to fare well.

Main image: KPop Demon Hunters. Netflix.