Joy
Bright tone, sly timing, and the member most likely to make a sweet line sound like she knows something you do not.
Profile
| Birth name | Park Soo-young |
| Born | September 3, 1996 |
| From | Jeju, South Korea; raised in Seoul |
| Group role | Vocalist · rapper · actor |
| Debut | Red Velvet, 2014 |
Contents
Early life · Career · Style and strengths · Solo work · Official links
Early life
Park Soo-young was born in Jeju and raised in Seoul. She joined SM after auditioning in 2012 and debuted two years later as one of Red Velvet’s original members.
Career
Joy developed from the group’s younger rapper-vocalist into one of its most recognizable tonal colors. Variety television, acting and soundtrack work helped her build an audience outside the group.
Why she matters in Red Velvet
Her clear, bright timbre cuts through dense Red Velvet production. She is particularly good at conversational lines,phrases that feel tossed off until they become the part everybody remembers.
Solo work and side quests
Joy has acted in television dramas, released soundtrack songs and debuted as a soloist with Hello, a remake album built around older Korean songs.
Start digging
Red Velvet group profile · Cosmic review · Sweet Dreams review
Official link
Audition, debut, and the name Joy
Park Soo-young was born September 3, 1996, on Jeju Island and raised in Seoul. She auditioned for SM in 2012 and trained for about two years. Unlike several members, she was not introduced through SM Rookies before Red Velvet’s debut. The public met her directly as Joy in “Happiness,” with the stage name chosen to match the bright emotional role she initially carried.
That early image was useful and limiting. Joy’s voice is rich, nasal in a deliberate way, and especially good at making melodic lines feel flirtatious or slightly wistful. Red Velvet’s summer songs would lose color without her.
The tone that makes Red Velvet sound like Red Velvet
Wendy supplies much of the vocal architecture, but Joy often supplies the flavor people remember. Her tone is immediately identifiable in “Russian Roulette,” “Red Flavor,” “Bad Boy,” “Psycho,” and “Cosmic.” She can brighten a verse without making it childish and darken a lower line without pretending to be someone else.
Acting and solo work
Joy expanded into acting through dramas including The Liar and His Lover, Tempted, and Once Upon a Small Town. Her 2021 solo release Hello reinterpreted Korean songs from earlier decades, a smart choice for a voice built around tone and nostalgia rather than vocal Olympics.
Writing Surfin’ Boy
Joy received sole lyric credit for “Surfin’ Boy,” the 2026 title track for Velvet Summer. That is not a decorative participation credit. She wrote the words carrying a full-group comeback and shaped the balance between dreamy attraction and Red Velvet’s usual suspicion that the beautiful boy may not survive the bridge.
RaeRae take
Joy’s public name accidentally became a job description people expect her to perform forever. I like her better as a full person: warm, ambitious, sometimes frustrated, occasionally sharp, and capable of writing a summer flirtation that still leaves room for a crossbow.
Current Red Velvet era
Red Velvet returned in August 2026 with Velvet Summer. Read the full “Surfin’ Boy” RaeRae Reacts review, including Joy’s sole lyric credit, the aquatic-men mystery, and Yeri’s extremely reasonable crossbow.