Samuel Kim Arredondo (born January 17, 2002; formerly known as Punch), referred to as Samuel, born in Los Angeles, California is a Mexican-Korean. Kim Samuel is an American born singer based in South Korea. He was a part of the short-lived hip hop duo 1Punch, during 2015.
He is a former Pledis trainee who is supposed to debut with a K-pop group called Seventeen. He left the agency in 2013 for personal reasons.
In 2015, Samuel debuted as a part of a hip-hop duo named 1Punch (with rapper One) under a collaboration between Brave Entertainment and D-Business Entertainment, taking ‘PUNCH’ as his stage name. The group later disbanded because ONE joined YG Entertainment.
Under the name PUNCH, Samuel collaborated with Silentó to release the single “Spotlight” in 2016, for which they won the 26th Seoul Music Award for Global Collaboration. He later joined Silentó on tour in the US.
In April 2017, he participated in the reality television series Produce 101 Season 2 during the first half of 2017. In the final episode, he ranked 18th and was not able to join the show’s project group. One month after the show ended, he began his solo career as Samuel, with the release of his first EP Sixteen on August 2.
