User:Wuju Daisuki/sandbox/Riaa (singer)

Riaa (born Kim Jae-won, ; August 2, 1975) is a South Korean singer.

Early life
Riaa was born Kim Jae-won on August 2, 1975. When she was six years old, she moved to Nepal with her father, a mountaineer. She spent her youth in Kathmandu, Nepal and New Delhi, India, and moved back to South Korea when she was ten years old. In her freshman year of high school, her friends applied her to a singing contest on MBC's radio program Starry Night (radio program), where she won in the year-end finals. An appearance with a band in the EBS program Beautiful World, Big Dreams got her picked up by her manager.

Career
Before her official debut, Riaa guested in the concerts of artists like Zoo and miS=mR, and appeared on the TV programs Open Concert and Lee Sora's Propose. After eight months of production, she released her debut studio album, Diary. Riaa wrote lyrics for the entire album, basing it off her own diary. The album was produced by N.EX.T bassist Kim Young-seok, whose band (bar Shin Hae-chul) also provided instrumentation. In August of 1997, she ceased performing live due to vocal cord nodules; taking time to rest, she returned to the stage later that year. Riaa released her second album, Gae Ddong Chul Hak, in the beginning of 1998. Later that year, she released Yozosooknyo, her third effort. The album was a change for the softer and more emotional; the lyrics were inspired by a real-life breakup she had gone through.

In 2003, she released the album Alchemist, but issues with her company made it impossible for her to promote it. Her seven-year slump was broken in 2006 with "I'm Sorry to My Heart", the theme for the drama Dear Heaven.

In 2024, she was selected to join the South Korean National Assembly as part of the Rebuilding Korea Party.