Jeon So-yeon

Jeon So-yeon (born August 26, 1998), known mononymously as Soyeon, is a South Korean rapper, singer, songwriter and record producer under Cube Entertainment.

Jeon So-yeon was born on August 26, 1998, in Gaepo-dong, Gangnam-gu in Seoul.

As a child, she was home-schooled and later attended Kuryong Elementary School.

While in elementary school, Jeon studied ballet, entering and winning numerous competitions.

She quit to pursue a career in music after seeing Big Bang perform; Jeon secretly attended and failed around 20 to 30 singing auditions.

Jeon later decided to pursue rapping, and received interested calls.

With the interested parties' direction of music being different from hers, she let go of her dream of becoming a singer and picked up dancing again.

It was then that she began performing as a street dancer.

She remained a popular contestant throughout the show's run, peaking at 10th place on the fifth episode.

However, she ranked at number 20 on the last episode and failed to become a member of the winning project girl group, I.O.I.

After seeing Cube Entertainment's 2014 audition poster, Jeon decided to attend the Incheon auditions and became a trainee at the company.

In January 2016, Jeon appeared as a representative trainee for Cube Entertainment in the first season of the girl group survival show Produce 101.

In July 2016, Jeon appeared as a contestant in the third season of the rap competition show Unpretty Rapstar.

Jeon finished the show as the second runner-up, and three of her tracks were included on the show's final compilation album.

On December 29, 2016, Jeon signed an exclusive contract as an artist under Cube Entertainment.

She first gained attention for competing in the television shows Produce 101 and Unpretty Rapstar before debuting as a solo artist on November 5, 2017.

She officially debuted on November 5, 2017, with the digital singles "Jelly" and "Idle Song", which she wrote herself.

On May 2, 2018, she debuted as the leader and rapper of the girl group (G)I-dle, for whom she has written and produced most title songs.

She is also part of SM Station X girl group project Station Young and has portrayed League of Legends character Akali in the virtual musical groups K/DA and True Damage.

On January 11, 2018, it was announced that Jeon would be re-debuting in Cube Entertainment's new girl group (G)I-dle, as a rapper and its leader.

She was credited in writing the lyrics, music and arrangement for both their debut song "Latata" and their next single "Hann", both of which were well received and commercially successful.

She also helped write five songs from (G)I-dle's debut extended play I Am.

On August 8, 2018, it was announced that Jeon would participate in a girl group project called Station Young for SM Station's X 0 alongside Red Velvet's Seulgi, Kim Chung-ha, and GFriend's SinB.

Station Young released their first song, "Wow Thing", on September 28, 2018.

After their debut, Jeon and fellow (G)I-dle member Miyeon were approached by Riot Games to collaborate with American artists Jaira Burns and Madison Beer as part of the virtual girl group K/DA for the multiplayer online battle arena video game League of Legends.

K/DA officially debuted with the song "Pop/Stars" during the 2018 League of Legends World Championship on November 3.

The official music video for "Pop/Stars" was released on the same day, reaching 30 million views on YouTube in five days, and 100 million in one month.

The single release of the song reached number one on Billboard's World Digital Songs chart.

The K/DA incarnation of the character Akali, whose vocals were performed by Jeon, proved to be especially popular, becoming a frequent subject of fan art and cosplay.

In 2019, Jeon composed labelmate CLC's "No", which was selected through a blind test and served as the lead single of the group's EP No.1.

In March 2019, Jeon made a public apology for using a pirated version of the German music-producing software Kontakt.

She wrote on her online fan community site, "I deeply regret that I used an illegal copy of the program; as far as I remember, I used it when I first learned songwriting. I had not even recognized that I did not delete the program. But since the day I began composing in earnest, I have only used authorized programs."

The apology came days after a behind-the-scenes YouTube video of preparing the I Made EP, produced by the agency, showed icons of the software's illegal copy on her laptop screen.

The agency later deleted the video and apologized.

Jeon reprised her role as Akali in the League of Legends collaborative hip hop group True Damage.

A collaboration with Becky G, Keke Palmer, Thutmose and Duckwrth titled "Giants" was released as a single alongside an animated music video on November 10, 2019.

The song is a multilingual track performed predominantly in English, with verses in Spanish and Korean.

On the same day, the group performed at the 2019 League of Legends World Championship finals in Paris, France.

It was Jeon's second year in a row to perform at the opening ceremony of the World Championship finals.

"Giants" debuted at number fifteen and nineteen at Billboard 's Rap and R&B/Hip hop Digital Songs Sales charts, respectively.