Charley Yang is the man behind the BoyWithUke mask
The once-faceless musician took off his mask to chat about "Burnout," his new record, and the importance of mental health
Charley Yang found his start on TikTok under the pseudonym BoyWithUke.
Courtesy of Charley Yang
Words by Andy Crump
Music producers today have a simple trick for settling on a song’s audio quality, called “the iPhone test.” Here’s how it works: If a track sounds good when played through an iPhone’s speakers, then it passes the test. Maybe they’re begging the question. On the other hand, commercially available earbuds and headphones give clarity even to badly mixed tracks, so maybe listening without the benefit of sick Beyerdynamics gear really is the best quality gauge anyone can ask for.
Thoughts like these, and countless others, weighed on Charley Yang’s mind during the production of Burnout, his new record, which was released Friday, and more meaningfully, his last record using the pseudonym he’s worked under since getting his start on TikTok in 2020: BoyWithUke.
For the last few years, that title has served as Yang’s alter ego, and a custom-made LED mask has been his disguise. But in October 2023, when he released his fourth LP, Lucid Dreams, Yang had grown weary of hiding his face from his audience; in the final shot of the music video for “Homesick,” one of the album’s marquee tracks, he appears sans mask, which he has since shelved. Yang wants to move into the future as himself. He is still a boy; he still plays a ukulele. Nowadays, though, you can call him “Charley,” or perhaps “chandol”—his former legal name, which he plans to use as the name of his next project once Burnout is in the rearview. It’s fair then, to interpret the record as a snapshot of transition: The BoyWithUke name remains, but the mask is off, as if to draw a straight line between Burnout and Lucid Dreams.
But Yang, personally, isn’t changing. He simply needed change for his own sake. So take Burnout as a sign of growth along his journey as a musician—which, with a total of five albums and three extended plays, has already taken him a considerable distance.
With the record’s release imminent, I talked to Yang about how putting the mask away has helped boost his mental health in the last year, how “BoyWithUke” will always be a part of his identity, and the experimentation with sounds and genres he brought to his latest work.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
Andy Crump: You unmasked yourself a little over a year ago. I remember at the time, you attributed the decision to mental and physical health. How have you been since making that decision?
Charley Yang: Honestly, mentally I've been pretty good, and physically as well, though that’s a little bit less related, I think. It’s a lot better to not have to wear a mask whenever I want to do music stuff.
AC: You’re not going to be using the BoyWithUke moniker going forward, right? You're going to be performing as Charley Yang?
CY: Not Charley Yang either. I think the plan right now is actually that the new artist project name would be chandol, which was my name when I was younger. It used to be my legal name, but I changed it to Charley because other people thought [chandol] was weird, and they made it very clear that they thought it was weird. But yeah, I think now I'm running with it.
AC: Okay, so that's interesting to hear. I wonder then, if leaving behind the BoyWithUke moniker is also part of that health journey. Being anonymous online can have a negative effect on self-image. Does this feel like a positive step going forward creatively, and personally as well?
CY: Yeah. I mean, the thing with BoyWithUke was that it started off as an anonymous thing, and then it quickly turned into acting, almost. BoyWithUke was known as BoyWithUke, and not underground, you know? I think it kind of ruined it for me. And now, it is just so much easier to be myself, if that makes sense. I'm not expected to be anything. I'm just me. So definitely a good step.
AC: There’s a lot of freedom in that.
CY: I think so. But there are aspects about the mask that gave me freedom. I could probably say some edgier stuff. There was that benefit of saying, “Okay, it's not actually me”–the mental gymnastics of “this is BoyWithUke, not [Charley Yang].” But that gets difficult after a while.
"Burnout" will be the last album under Charley Yang's pseudonym BoyWithUke.
Courtesy of Charley Yang
AC: I would also say there’s also the benefit of the mask just looking sick as hell.
CY: The music video director, the photographer, they say the same thing. Literally, you just put [the mask] on, do anything, and it's a good photo. But now it’s about facial expressions and making sure my face is smooth and whatnot.
AC: Taking that back to Burnout, I see the record occupying an interesting place in your discography. Lucid Dreams came out Oct. 6, 2023. You revealed your face on Instagram a few days after that, right?
CY: Yeah, yeah.
AC: So that was the last record released where you used the mask and the moniker. You released Burnout as BoyWithUke, but there’s an image of you in the press release with the mask slung over your shoulder. So you haven't fully divorced that old identity. Does it feel like Burnout is the bridge you're crossing to fully move away from the mask and BoyWithUke to this next chapter of your life?
CY: Exactly. Honestly, you hit right on the nose. It has always been a conversation with my team where it's really hard to let go of the mask, because obviously a lot of fans still like it and are attached to it. So the album is basically about a kind of breakup. But also in a way it's about me finding it hard to let go of the past, and this mask is just like baggage. I can't get rid of it. So I think that also plays into stopping BoyWithUke and doing this new project. I feel like it's very difficult to continue BoyWithUke the way I want to, because it's so different from what the fans are used to. I think that's why we've been using imagery of the mask, and separating the two.
AC: And that part of your life is part of you, too, not something you can, or would want to, leave behind in your past. It's always going to be with you, right?
CY: Yeah, in a way. I can't change the past. And don't get me wrong, there are so many positive things that BoyWithUke has done, honestly, more positive than negative. But I guess chandol, or the next project, could not have been made without BoyWithUke. BoyWithUke walked so that hopefully this next project can run.
AC: That makes sense. You described this as a breakup record; that's a really interesting genesis for the sound. You bring a lot of different influences to this record; it feels like you're breaking through, in a way, because it feels like a representation of the many different sides you have as a person. Is that something you intended?
CY: Yeah, for sure. There’s a lot more variety, I think, in these songs. They're all trying to do different things, whereas I think beforehand, honestly, what was going through my head was, “What will stream the best?” But on this one I just threw ideology out the window. I just wanted to see what I could do, almost out of curiosity. It probably did have something to do with the breakup. I mean, you've probably gone through breakups before, but there's just this emptiness, you know? Like a big void that you just want to fill with anything. So I tried picking up the guitar and learning logic and doing more with music.
AC: You find out a lot about yourself in a breakup, too. Do you feel like you learned new things about yourself, or tap into old parts of yourself that you hadn't been in contact with for a while?
CY: I think a little bit of both. When you hang out with one person for so long, you sort of become them, and when they're gone, part of them stays. But a lot of it is almost like freedom to be other things. I think definitely a few old habits came back, and some new ones–neither bad nor good, just new habits.
AC: Yeah. You regress and progress at the same time. It makes sense; people have a lot of different faces. I think that’s an interesting dynamic for artists rooted in social media platforms. How does that pose problems for you? I find that when you're online, you become divided on these social networks. It becomes hard to reconcile different parts of yourself across each platform. Has that been a challenge for you?
CY: A little bit, especially now with the face reveal. Speaking of different platforms, there are some posts that I will post on TikTok that I will not post on Instagram, partially because a lot of my friends follow my Instagram, but not my TikTok, because Instagram's a more popular platform for people my age. But yeah, it is weird. A few days ago I posted a TikTok doing a dance thing, and if I post that on Instagram, I just know I'm going to get a few DMs or messages from my personal friends, saying “Dude, what the heck are you doing? You suck.” [Laughs.]
So I keep it a little separate. But there are times, especially now, where I have to promote on all platforms and reach as many people as I can. So I have to put my pride aside and just roll with it.
AC: At some point it feels exhausting. I imagine that does not change with the change in moniker. You don't have a crystal ball, but I wonder if that will make things simpler for you? At least you're going to be you without the mask across these different platforms. Do you think it'll be easier to deal with social media as yourself?
CY: I think so, for sure. Because even though the TikToks might be a little bit more cringe, it's still me. I chose to do that. And I think it's a little fun, and if my friends think it's cringe, it's all good. There are things that they think are cool that I find cringe. There's no objectivity. Everyone's a little bit cringe!
AC: You self-compose. Was this a harder album to produce just because it has a more diverse range of influences? Or, on the other hand, was it easier to make because you were making it as yourself?
CY: Hindsight, it's a little bit hard to say, but I do know the challenges were different. On this one, for a lot of the songs, the lyrics came so easily, like in a day, or a matter of days. The part that took the longest was choosing the right sounds, and very meticulous things, like what kind of drums I wanted to use and what kind of synths I wanted to use, whereas before, in older projects, the challenge was, what do I think would blow up? What sounds did I think were the catchiest? So, different challenges, but I think this one felt like it was easier. Maybe it wasn't, but I definitely enjoyed making it a lot more.
AC: Is it because of that sense of freedom, because this was the moment where you started leaving the mask behind?
CY: Honestly, it's hard to quantify, but probably because I was learning, and getting over little speed bumps, and just experimenting, it just made [recording] so much more interesting, and so much more engaging for me.
Published on November 18, 2024
Words by Andy Crump
Bostonian culture journalist Andy Crump covers movies, beer, music, fatherhood, and way too many other subjects for way too many outlets, perhaps even yours: Paste Magazine, Inverse, The New York Times, Hop Culture, Polygon, and Men's Health, plus more. You can follow him on Bluesky and find his collected work at his personal blog. He’s composed of roughly 65 percent craft beer.