Lee Jai-jin

Biography

It began with a dance crew. In Busan, Lee Jai-jin and his friend Kim Jae-duck formed a group called “Quicksilver”, and Lee Juno, known as a member of Seo Taiji and Boys, heard about it. He recommended the young men to an agency, and Lee became a trainee.

He was born in Busan, in the Saha District. The sources disagree on his date of birth: by some accounts 13 July 1979, by others 18 July. At school he attended an arts and crafts high school in Busan, and later took a bachelor’s degree in mass media and video at Kyonggi University. In 1997 he debuted as a member of Sechs Kies under the agency Daesung Entertainment. Kang Sung-hoon later recalled that he had watched the audition tape and chosen Lee for his dancing and his looks. In the group Lee became the sub-rapper and main dancer, and together with Kim Jae-duck he devised the choreography for most of the music videos. In 1998 the members appeared in the film “Seventeen”, in which Lee played a character named Hyuk. The group was among the most popular in Korea in the late 1990s and was a rival of the boy band H.O.T. In May 2000, after their fourth album, the members unexpectedly announced that they were leaving the stage; their last performance took place at the Dream Concert on 20 May.

Lee began his solo career as the third member of the group to do so. His first album, “S.Wing”, came out in November 2001, with the hit “Double J”. It was followed by “002 J2” (2003) with the song “Go Back” and, after a three-year pause, “It’s New!” (2005) with the song “Charge”. From the descriptions I have seen, these records did not repeat the success of the group years, and the group itself no longer existed at the time. In 2002 he also recorded the track “Again”, the main theme of the game Metal Slug 4.

From 2006 Lee did his mandatory military service. At first he worked at a company that developed games, but that service was annulled, and in 2008 he was called up to the army again. He was discharged on 10 August 2010. He then left show business and went to study in Japan; by his own account, he intended to pursue the fine arts. In 2011 his illustrations of the five members appeared in a special edition of an album by the group Big Bang. In 2013 he opened a restaurant, School Food, together with a relative, in a building owned by YG Entertainment. In 2015 and 2016, under the pseudonym Hanzo (한조), he took part in the group exhibitions “Imagination Alliance 2” and “Imagination Alliance 3” at GALERIE GAIA.

In 2016 Sechs Kies reunited on the television show “Infinite Challenge”, without Ko Ji-yong. The other members signed with YG Entertainment as a group, and Lee and Kang Sung-hoon also signed as solo artists. In August Lee joined the variety show “Flower Crew”, but soon left it to concentrate on the group’s work. In 2017 Sechs Kies released their fifth album, “Another Light”, and in 2020 the mini-album “All for you”.