online showcase hosted by the company. Despite not being heavily promoted after release, "Hero" gave Lim his first top-10 single on the Gaon Digital Chart, debuting and peaking at number seven. On December 16, 2020, Lim was announced as a winner of the 2021 Korea Image Awards, being awarded as a member of Trot Men, the top six finalists of Mr. Trot. They were given the Stepping Stone Award for "their work on revitalizing the lives of people exhausted from COVID-19 and spreading out trot music all over the world". As a result of his rising popularity in 2020, Lim became the most searched figure on web portal Naver that year. At the end of the same year, according to the annual survey conducted by Gallup Korea for Singer of the Year, he was named one of the five most favorite singers by both people aged 13–39 ( 4) and people aged 40 and over (no. 1). Furthermore, he was the second most-streamed artist domestically on YouTube that year, only behind boy band BTS. Lim released the single "My Starry Love" on March 9, 2021, one year after winning Mr. Trot. The song was penned by , one of South Korea's best-known trot singer-songwriters. Five days prior to its release, he premiered the song at the finals of the second season of Miss Trot. "My Starry Love" debuted atop the Gaon Digital Chart, making it the first number-one single of his career. The song also earned Lim the first music program award ever since his debut, winning first place on MBC's Show! Music Core. This feat made him the first trot artist to receive a music show win in 14 years since on KBS2's Music Bank in 2007. On May 2, 2022, Lim released his first studio album, Im Hero, which includes a wide range of genres aside from ballad and trot, such as pop rock, reggae hip-hop, jazz, and folk pop. One of the tracks from the album titled "Our Blues, Our Life" was pre-released on April 17. On November 15, 2022, Lim released the double single "Polaroid", containing the pop rock tracks "Polaroid" and "London Boy". The latter marks his first songwriting credit as a lyricist and composer. As a YouTuber Lim began using his eponymous YouTube channel in 2016 with an official audio video for the debut song "Hate You". On December 4 that year, he uploaded