Welcome to my Artist Spotlight, every month on my World Tour show (Wednesday's 3-4pm KCC Live) I select an musician or band and play tracks from their discography, and on this blog I'll be writing about the artist or musician in question. This month's Artist Spotlight is Rain from South Korea.
Described by a Guardian article as a Korean Justin Timberlake, Rain (real name Jeong Ji-Hoon) has been on the South Korean music scene since 2002 and to date has released 6 albums, 5 of these albums (Bad Guy, How To Avoid The Sun, It's Raining, Rain's World and Rainism) were Korean albums he also released a Japanese language album entitled Eternal Rain.
It was from this article by the Guardian that I got into Rain's music after listening to the track the article featured (I'm Coming featuring Tablo from the South Korean Hip Hop/RnB group Epik High) with it's catchy chorus and strong beat the video was also really interesting to watch with it's almost militaristic dance interlude.
Rain's style is RnB and Pop and his live performances has Rain both singing and dancing, in one interview he stated that he like to incorporate martial arts into his dance moves. For most of his singles, Rain sung behind a pop or RnB beat, however the first single from his third album It's Raining had a hip hop beat to it the song, the first time he had used such influences in his music, the single It's Raining proved to be very popular reaching number one in several countries including his native South Korea. Rain has also experimented with Latino influences in the song Sad Tango from his Japanese album which also includes an English version of the song.
It's not just Korea and Japan where Rain 'reigns', his albums have had success in other Asian countries such as China, Indonesia and Taiwan it is also in these countries where audiences were introduced to Rain as an actor in the TV Series Full House which he won a Best Actor Award for his role as Lee Young-Jae.
His acting isn't just limited to television work, in 2006 he starred in the Korean film I'm A Cyborg winning the Best New Actor Award at the Baek Sang Art Awards, it was also around that time where he became noticed in the West, making the Time 100, People Who Shaped Our World list and even made number one of a reader poll for the 100 most influential people from the same magazine in 2007 and placing second in the 2008 poll prompting the 'third' most influential person on the list that year Stephen Colbert to invite his 'rival' Rain onto his show for a Dance-Off which surprise surprise Rain won.
Described by a Guardian article as a Korean Justin Timberlake, Rain (real name Jeong Ji-Hoon) has been on the South Korean music scene since 2002 and to date has released 6 albums, 5 of these albums (Bad Guy, How To Avoid The Sun, It's Raining, Rain's World and Rainism) were Korean albums he also released a Japanese language album entitled Eternal Rain.
It was from this article by the Guardian that I got into Rain's music after listening to the track the article featured (I'm Coming featuring Tablo from the South Korean Hip Hop/RnB group Epik High) with it's catchy chorus and strong beat the video was also really interesting to watch with it's almost militaristic dance interlude.
Rain's style is RnB and Pop and his live performances has Rain both singing and dancing, in one interview he stated that he like to incorporate martial arts into his dance moves. For most of his singles, Rain sung behind a pop or RnB beat, however the first single from his third album It's Raining had a hip hop beat to it the song, the first time he had used such influences in his music, the single It's Raining proved to be very popular reaching number one in several countries including his native South Korea. Rain has also experimented with Latino influences in the song Sad Tango from his Japanese album which also includes an English version of the song.
It's not just Korea and Japan where Rain 'reigns', his albums have had success in other Asian countries such as China, Indonesia and Taiwan it is also in these countries where audiences were introduced to Rain as an actor in the TV Series Full House which he won a Best Actor Award for his role as Lee Young-Jae.
His acting isn't just limited to television work, in 2006 he starred in the Korean film I'm A Cyborg winning the Best New Actor Award at the Baek Sang Art Awards, it was also around that time where he became noticed in the West, making the Time 100, People Who Shaped Our World list and even made number one of a reader poll for the 100 most influential people from the same magazine in 2007 and placing second in the 2008 poll prompting the 'third' most influential person on the list that year Stephen Colbert to invite his 'rival' Rain onto his show for a Dance-Off which surprise surprise Rain won.
Not only has Rain performed concerts in the United States but he has also starred in two American films, first he played Taejo Togokahn in Speed Racer and most recently starred in Ninja Assassin (which I reviewed here) both films showing off the martial arts skills that he had incorporated into his dancing.
It's difficult to say what Rain will do next, his last album Rainism caused some controversy due to the title track having a line which was inappropriate for anyone under the age of 19 because of it's implied sexual content a clean version of the album with a warning label was issued. But with his exposure to western audiences he may even go the way of fellow Korean RnB artist BoA and release an English album but who knows? He does have a clothing line (Six to Five) to run, an entertainment company (J Tune Entertainment) to help run as well as his acting career to keep him busy.
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