Kim Jae Joong

Han Jae-joon (born on January 26, 1986 in Gongju, South Chungcheong, South Korea) (known as Kim Jae-joong and Jaejoong) is a South Korean singer, songwriter, actor and director. Auditioning for SM Entertainment in his teens, he was signed as lead singer of TVXQ in 2003, with the group re-forming as JYJ in 2010. Their first Japanese EP The… reached number 1 on the Oricon charts, with the group releasing English language debut The Beginning, featuring singer and rapper Kanye West. In 2011, the group released studio album In Heaven, achieving similar success in Korea. Pursuing a parallel solo career, Jae-joong performed on the soundtrack for popular television dramas including "Living Like A Dream" for Dr. Jin (2012), earning him the Best Hallyu Drama OST award at the Seoul International Drama Awards. Following this success, Jae-joong’s debut solo EP I/MINE (2013) topped both the Hanteo and Gaon charts, attracting considerable attention throughout Taiwan and Japan, with solo album WWW peaking at number 1 and 4 in Korea and Japan respectively. His second album No.X, recorded in 2015 and released during his military service the following year became the most popular K-pop album in China, debuting at number 3 on the Billboard World charts. Jae-joong’s career continued to soar in 2018 with Gold-certified singles “Sign / Your Love” and “Defiance / Lavender” which featured on his debut Japanese album Flawless Love (2019), once again topping the Oricon charts, along with cover albums Love Covers (2019) and Love Covers II (2020). Continuing to record soundtracks for popular Korean television shows, including “Things We Should Love” from Private Lives (2020) and “Sixth Magnitude Star” from manga adaptation Waru – Who Said It’s Not Cool to Work? (2022), Jae-joong released Korean-language album Born Gene in September 2022, prior to an extensive tour of Seoul, Kuala Lumpur and Bangkok and on November 9, released his fourth Japanese album Fallinbow, which peaked at number 2. In May, 2023, after the expiration of his contract, he announced the creation of his own agency iNKODE, which would promote new artists as well as his own projects, releasing the follow-up to his popular Love Covers series, titled Love Covers III in November that year.