EJAE

Early life and the family footnote people always discover later

Kim Eun-jae was born in Seoul and began training in the Korean entertainment system while most children were still negotiating bedtime. She is the granddaughter of Shin Young-kyun, the actor and lawyer whose career stretched across hundreds of Korean films. That connection gave her a famous name in the family tree. It did not hand her a debut.

EJAE grew up between Korean and American cultural spaces and later studied at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. The bilingual, bicultural part of her life became crucial much later, when KPop Demon Hunters needed songs that sounded like commercial K-pop while carrying story, shame, Korean language, humor, and musical-theater precision at the same time.

Twelve years at SM Entertainment without the debut ending

EJAE entered SM Entertainment in 2003 at age eleven and remained connected to the trainee system until 2015, a twelve-year stretch split between school, travel and repeated preparations for a debut. At eighteen she was offered a place in a ballad group, but chose college because she still wanted a solo path and took education seriously. She later fast-tracked studies in music production and psychology at New York University while expecting that a solo debut might still follow. SM ultimately released her without debuting her.

That sentence sounds neat now because people know what happened afterward. Living it was not neat. She had spent her childhood and adolescence preparing for one job, then had to build a different identity inside the same industry. She later described the rejection as a redirection, but the useful part of that phrase is that redirection still requires walking.

Her trainee life was not one uninterrupted dorm story. She moved between Seoul and the United States, attended an international school in Korea, protected time for education and eventually built a life in the New York area. Interviews describe hours booked alone in practice rooms after formal lessons ended. The system also policed small physical habits, food, posture and appearance. Those details explain why she talks about the period as literal blood, sweat and tears rather than cute pre-debut trivia.

The trainee years were not wasted. EJAE learned to hear songs as performance objects. She thinks about how a line will move, how a chorus might be staged, and what kind of image a sound could create. That training shows in her work because her songs rarely behave like audio files waiting for choreography. The movement is already hiding inside them.

The songwriter behind songs people already knew

The first bridge back into the studio

After graduation, EJAE briefly considered music therapy and had to learn how to make decisions outside a company system that had shaped most of her childhood. An OST recording introduced her to producer Shinsadong Tiger, who invited her into a writing session. That path led to Hani’s EXID solo “Hello” in 2016. Andrew Choi later became an important mentor and collaborator. By 2017, EJAE was back inside an SM songwriting camp, this time as a creator whose melody could be chosen without her needing to fit an idol lineup.

Before the public connected EJAE’s face and voice to Rumi, K-pop listeners had been hearing her work for years. She co-wrote and demoed Red Velvet’s “Psycho,” created at a 2017 songwriting camp and inspired by an argument with her long-distance fiancé. The song arrived in 2019 and became one of Red Velvet’s defining singles.

Her credits spread across generations and companies. They include aespa’s “Drama” and “Armageddon,” NMIXX’s “O.O” and “DICE,” TWICE’s “Last Waltz,” LE SSERAFIM’s “So Cynical (Badum),” and work for artists including Suzy, Taeyeon, EXID, and others. She writes melody, lyrics, vocal architecture, and the kind of demo performance that can quietly become the blueprint for an idol’s final recording.

This is the part of K-pop people forget when they talk as if a group invented a song in the makeup chair. EJAE was one of the adults in rooms building the sound, often without the public knowing her name.

A credit trail, not a five-song highlight reel

The longer catalog begins with EXID’s “Hello,” Hani’s “Woo Yoo,” Byul’s “Leaves,” Suzy’s “SObeR,” Babylon’s “Karma,” Seo In-young’s “Always,” and Red Velvet’s “Psycho.” It continues through Taeyeon’s “Sorrow,” TWICE’s “Pieces of Love” and “Last Waltz,” Chung Ha and LACHICA’s “Bad Girl,” Red Velvet’s “Birthday,” NMIXX’s “O.O” and “DICE,” aespa’s “Drama” and “Armageddon,” LE SSERAFIM’s “So Cynical (Badum),” FIFTY FIFTY’s “Starry Night,” and other cuts whose exact roles range from lyrics and topline to composition, background vocals and production.

She also co-produced the Girl Crush K-Pop Vocals sample pack for Splice. That project makes the hidden labor unusually literal: phrasing, ad-libs and vocal textures packaged as building material for other producers. In February 2025 she signed a publishing agreement with Prescription Songs. In October 2025, WME announced representation following the film’s breakout.

KPop Demon Hunters and the voice that stayed in the movie

EJAE joined the music development for KPop Demon Hunters near its earliest stages, around 2019 and 2020. She came in as a songwriter and recorded extensive demos while the directors, composers, and production teams searched for the musical identity of HUNTR/X and the Saja Boys. Some sequences went through dozens of versions.

She helped write “How It’s Done,” “Golden,” “Your Idol,” “What It Sounds Like,” and “Prologue (Hunter’s Mantra).” Her demos carried lead vocals, harmonies, background parts, and temporary voices for characters across the film. The creative team heard her as Rumi for so long that the demo singer became the character’s official singing voice.

For CVM filing, HUNTR/X is the virtual K-pop group and Rumi is its animated leader. EJAE is the real artist who supplies Rumi’s singing voice and shares HUNTR/X performance credits with Audrey Nuna and REI AMI. The same recording therefore belongs in the HUNTR/X group file, Rumi’s member file and EJAE’s artist file. Arden Cho remains Rumi’s speaking actor. Those are connected credits, not one merged identity.

Her film work extends beyond HUNTR/X vocals. She co-wrote the Saja Boys’ “Your Idol,” proving that a songwriter credit does not make her a member of that virtual group. She also sings Rumi’s part in “Free” opposite Andrew Choi as Jinu. “How It’s Done” was the hardest sequence to solve, with many passes before its everyday phrase became the hook. “Hunter’s Mantra” drew on pansori feeling, while “Golden” had to work as a chart song, an identity reveal and an almost impossible vocal plot point at the same time.

That casting matters because Rumi’s story echoed EJAE’s own pressure to appear perfect while hiding the part of herself she thought would make her unacceptable. EJAE pulled her trainee heartbreak into “Golden.” The high notes sound triumphant because the lyric knows what it costs to believe the triumph.

“Golden,” performed with Audrey Nuna and REI AMI as HUNTR/X, topped the Billboard Hot 100. By 2026 it had won a Golden Globe, Grammy, and Academy Award for Best Original Song. The songwriter who had once been told the debut window had closed walked onto the world’s largest awards stages because an animated heroine used her voice to stop hiding.

Solo music before and after the world learned her name

EJAE did not begin singing in 2025. Her soundtrack appearances include “Whisper in the Dark” for Monster, “Take It Slow” for Woman of 9.9 Billion, “Midnight Cinderella” for Dinner Mate, and “Once Again” for Genesis. These recordings show the same flexible upper register and emotional precision that later made Rumi sound believable.

Her official debut solo single, “In Another World,” arrived on October 24, 2025. “Time After Time” followed in February 2026. The solo work is less interested in proving she can survive a “Golden” high note and more interested in what her voice sounds like when it is not attached to another artist’s concept or an animated character’s crisis.

Her pre-breakout vocal discography includes “Take It Slow” for Woman of 9.9 Billion, “Midnight Cinderella” for Dinner Mate, “Whisper in the Dark,” “Once Again,” and the Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts song “Ocean of Love.” She also contributed to “Rebirth,” a video-game song recognized by the Hollywood Music in Media Awards.

“In Another World” was written with Breagh MacKinnon and Ted Andreville and released through EJAE’s own artist channel on October 24, 2025. “Time After Time” followed on February 6, 2026, with credits including EunJae Kim, Rollo, Drew Scott and Vaughn Oliver. The releases move her from demo singer and character voice into a catalog where the concept belongs to EJAE herself.

The 2025 music video for “Take It Slow” also gave an older OST song a new life after the audience finally knew who had been singing it. It is a funny reversal. Usually fame sends people digging for childhood clips. EJAE’s archive contained fully formed vocals waiting for the name recognition to catch up.

When HUNTR/X stepped out of the screen

EJAE, Audrey Nuna and REI AMI began appearing together as the real vocal performers attached to HUNTR/X. Their first surprise “Golden” performance arrived on Saturday Night Live in October 2025, followed by a full television performance on The Tonight Show. The trio later appeared at major public and awards events, including the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade and the 2026 Oscars. These appearances do not replace Rumi, Mira and Zoey as the group’s fictional members. They are the credited singers performing the soundtrack in the real world.

“Golden” reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, while the soundtrack reached No. 1 on the Billboard 200. Its awards run included the Golden Globe, Grammy and Academy Award for Best Original Song. EJAE’s speeches repeatedly framed the result as rejection redirected rather than an overnight discovery.

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