Baek Z Young

Born March 25, 1976 in Seoul, South Korean pop singer Baek Ji-young burst onto her home country’s music scene with the 1999 single “Choice”, which stood out for relying on a more Latin sound than was common in Korean dance music. The song became a success, and she quickly followed it up with the 2000 album Rouge. A scandal involving a sex tape erupted, causing her to cut back drastically on personal appearances for five years, and nearly ending her career. She bounced back with 2006’s Smile Again and the hit single “I Won’t Love”, which was a gentle love ballad that was quite different from her established dance singles. The song earned her the Best Female Artist award at the 2006 Mnet Asian Music Awards, and she would win it again three years later for “Like Being Hit By a Bullet”. She would prove to have remarkable career longevity, moving back and forth between dance tracks and romantic ballads, as well as composing regularly for television dramas. 2011’s Pitta was a top 5 album, and spawned the hit single “Ordinariness”. She didn’t record another album the rest of the decade, but she continued to enjoy successful singles like “Hate”, “Acacia”, “Fervor”, “Still In Love”, and “No Love, No Heartbreak”. In 2020 she released the single “I Still Love You a Lot”.