Jeon So-yeon

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

Early life
Jeon So-yeon was born on August 26, 1998, in Gaepo-dong, Gangnam-gu in Seoul. As a child, she had a diverse upbringing, attending a Buddhist kindergarten, before being homeschooled and later enrolling in Kuryong Elementary School. During her time there, she immersed herself in 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. After seeing Cube Entertainment's 2014 audition poster, Jeon decided to attend the Incheon auditions and became a trainee at the company. She continued her journey, managing both her training schedule and education, and in February, 2017, she graduated from Chung-Ang University.

2016–2017: Produce 101, Unpretty Rapstar and solo debut
In January 2016, Jeon appeared as a representative trainee for Cube Entertainment in the first season of the girl group survival show Produce 101. 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.

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

2018–2020: Debut with (G)I-dle, collaborations with League of Legends and solo activities
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.

In 2020, Jeon guested on Mnet's hip hop-inspired show Do You Know Hip Hop, collaborating with Double K and Nuck to perform a remix of "Lion". In April, (G)I-dle released their third EP, I Trust. All of the songs on the album, including the lead single "Oh My God", was written and composed by Jeon and longtime collaborator Yummy Tone. The lead single was released in both English and Korean. On July 22, Jeon helped write and featured on DJ Hyo's "Dessert" with rapper Loopy, a jungle pop song with "bouncy" beat and moombahton rhythm, synthesizer-based hook, claps and whistles, and lyrics expressing desire for a sweet love rather than a difficult and complex one. In an interview with Melon, DJ Hyo revealed that she chose Jeon as a collaborator because of her talents. In August, Jeon composed (G)I-dle's first summer song, "Dumdi Dumdi", alongside Pop Time, who had previously produced songs for rapper Zico and the boy band Block B.

On August 27, 2020, Jeon reprised her role as League of Legends character Akali in "The Baddest" and "More", on K/DA's EP All Out. Jeon was credited as the producer of Apink's Namjoo solo debut song "Bird", which was released on September 7. On December 16, it was confirmed that Jeon, Pentagon's Hui, and AB6IX's Lee Dae-hwi would produce songs for the top seven competition on Mnet's audition show CAP-TEEN. Her song, "Eternal Sunshine", was performed by Lee Seo-bin. It was characterized as having "a groovy" guitar and bass rhythm with lyrics expressing the feelings of a first love. Lee received overall positive reviews and a total score of 354 from the judges for the performance.

2021–present: First solo EP Windy
In January 2021, (G)I-dle released their EPI Burn, including the lead single "Hwaa"; Jeon wrote four of the six tracks. The same month, Jeon appeared on Face ID, a KakaoTV original entertainment show revealing the everyday lifestyle of celebrities through their phones, which aired every Monday for three weeks from January 25. In the episodes, she revealed the production process of many of her songs, daily lives with (G)I-dle members, 1,600 demo songs, and behind-the-scenes video from the preparation of I Burn to the day of its release. On May 21, 2021, it was reported that Jeon would be releasing a solo album. On June 16, 2021, Cube Entertainment announced that her first EP, Windy, would be released on July 5, with "Beam Beam" serving as the lead single. Jeon won her first music program trophy on SBS MTV's The Show on July 13.

On November 9, 2023, it was confirmed that Jeon would be part of a special collaboration single "Nobody" with Ive's Liz and Aespa's Winter, which was released on November 16.

Influences
Jeon stated that her bandmates are her primary songwriting inspirations. She was heavily influenced by her rap teacher in high school, who Jeon recalled "taught [her] the basics like how to write good lyrics and how to melt in your sincerity." She also named CL, Britney Spears and Avril Lavigne as her role models with the latter two being the inspiration behind I Never Die's concept and fashion.

Jeon's songs are also inspired by cartoons, books and dramas. "Idle Song" was created because she was inspired by the SpongeBob SquarePants theme song. "Latata" was inspired by Song Joon-geun's catchphrase "arata rata rata" in KBS2's Gag Concert. "Hann (Alone)" was inspired by Kim Sowol's poem "Azaleas". "Senorita" was inspired by Spanish song, "Despacito" (2017). "Uh-Oh" was inspired by the expression and the tone used by staff, where she'd shot a reality show, To Neverland in the U.S. "Lion" was inspired from live-action The Lion King during her group's debut in Japan. For I Trust album concept, Jeon revealed that she got inspired by watching an isekai anime, KonoSuba: God's Blessing on this Wonderful World! Legend of Crimson, and "Luv U" was created and choreographed from the scene heart-finger V by the animation Sugar Sugar Rune. "Dumdi Dumdi" was inspired by the 2016 Disney's Zootopia. The inspiration for "Hwaa" came to Jeon when Shuhua once said 'winter girl' in a conversation. She took the idea and created the concept of a woman trapped in winter. For I Never Die, Jeon compared the album with the Marineford war in One Piece anime series – "the war is a very important event in One Piece. The story revolves around the members who have grown up two years after fighting a war that they thought was an insurmountable crisis and like the members are separated to grow up. Like the manga, I thought I Never Die is an album that depicts (G)I-dle after the war. This album, which is represented by growth and shock, was perfected with passion and fierceness." "Tomboy" was inspired by the fictional character, Cruella de Vil.

Songwriting and musical style
Although Jeon trained in songwriting classes before her debut, she never intended to be (G)I-dle's primary songwriter. Instead, she took on the role out of necessity: "At first, I really didn't know I'd be writing these songs ... but our debut was getting delayed because we didn't have a song. So that's when I thought, I should write our song, and started writing a title track." She described her composition process as starting with writing melodies on a blank page with just a piano or a beat, noting that "it is common to have a track maker, someone who writes melodies and putting a melody on a mostly completed beat." In the production of the group's debut song "Latata", Jeon began with moombahton beats and simple instruments such as percussion, putting them on loop and coated them with melody. She considers her bandmates while writing and tries to avoid the lyrics involving "me" or "I". Jeon further emphasized the importance of appealing to emotions to "mak[e] music without prejudice ... I think it's the music that anyone can sympathize with. Our group is multinational and has no language barrier."

For (G)I-dle's first preliminary performance on the competition show Queendom, Jeon proposed a sorceress concept for "Latata", an arrangement that IZM praised as "an entirely original song". According to the magazine, her consistent confidence in her group, song and herself both on and offstage is because "she has a clear image of what she wants to create." Poet Seo Hyo-in wrote that Jeon "covers all aspects of producing, from composition and writing, rap making and setting the concept" but "doesn't overshadow the other members." She praised Jeon for maximizing the strengths of each member, allowing them to find their own artistic freedom.

Gender stereotypes in music
Jeon expressed her desire for more women to take part in record production, believing that there are no gender boundaries when it comes to arts forms like music, performances and gaming. She stated, "When I write, I don't think about gender. No 'we're a girl group', women, men or age. I just write what's on my mind." In June 2020 interview with MTV, on using the pronoun "she" in "Oh My God", Jeon remarked that she "didn't want to limit that 'she' to a certain being or a certain definition, so it's open to anything" and that "all kinds of love are valuable and must be respected."

Image and impact
Media outlets have labelled Jeon a versatile artist, "triple threat", and Alpha girl due to her success as a rapper, singer, and songwriter and skills in record production and dancing. Cube Entertainment noted that Jeon's presence in (G)I-dle was vital to the group's popularity and helped set them apart from their peers. Also nicknamed "survival born monster", stemming from her appearance on multiple survival shows, she has established herself as a next-generation "producer-dol". RBW's Cosmic Sound (Kim Ki-hyun) and Cosmic Girl (former Rania member Yoo Joo-yi) described Jeon as a "genius songwriter-idol", and Kukinews named her the first successful female Korean idol singer who also produces music for both her group and other artists. Journalist Park Eun-hae dubbed Jeon the Korean Lady Gaga due to her small figure; courage to try challenging concepts without genre limitations; and unique position in the Korean entertainment industry as a writer, producer, and performer.

Jeon has been regarded as a role model for young women. Various artists cited her as an inspiration, including Majors' Aki, ANS' Dalyn, Woo!ah!'s Songyee, Craxy's KaRin Lightsum's Jian and Juhyeon, Lunarsolar's Eseo, H1-Key's Hwiseo, Blank2y's Siwoo, and Adya's Sena, Purple Kiss' Yuki. South Korean producer and songwriter Ryan S. Jhun expressed his admiration for the competition Queendom, on which (G)I-dle appeared, and shared that he hopes to work with Jeon one day.

Philanthropy
In April 2020, Jeon donated 30,000 hand sanitizers during the COVID-19 pandemic in South Korea through the Holt Children's Welfare Association. On June 2, 2021, Jeon opened a personal Instagram account with several photos of selfies and an arm tattoo. Later, Jeon revealed the tattoo was a "consent for organ donation" tattoo on V Live. She stated, "I saw an article saying that an average of 5 people a day died waiting for an organ donor. I thought about what I could do for others in my life, and then I came to a conclusion. It was a decision I made after cautiously thinking." On January 18, 2022, Jeon donated 20,000 briquettes to the Sharing Briquettes of Love campaign to help those in need, including unprivileged and low-income families, throughout the cold winter. In February 2023, Jeon donated 20 million won to the Hope Bridge National Disaster Relief Association in order to aid those affected by the 2023 Turkey–Syria earthquake.