Yaeji

Born in 1993 in Queens, New York, Korean-American producer, singer and DJ Yaeji (Kathy Yaeji Lee) has built a career split between the United States and South Korea. She spent her childhood between Seoul, Atlanta and New York before settling in Brooklyn. Trained in visual arts and East Asian studies, Yaeji turned to electronic music in the mid-2010s, first DJing at college parties and later becoming part of New York’s club scene. Her initial releases in 2016 were followed by the EPs Yaeji (often referred to as “EP1”) and EP2 in 2017, which established her aesthetic of slow house, electronic pop and hip‑hop influences, carried by a whispered vocal and lyrics alternating between Korean and English. The track “Raingurl” fits this introspective club vein, as do her remixes and occasional collaborations with musicians from Korean pop and indie, including OHHYUK. Yaeji extended this hybrid identity on the mixtape What We Drew 우리가 그려왔던 (2020) and the album With a Hammer (2023), where club rhythms, songcraft and more experimental atmospheres intersect, confirming her position at the border between the electronic scene, DIY culture and alternative pop.