Jihae

South Korean pop singer and actor Jihae has found success in the United States, releasing several albums, collaborating with some big names, and appearing in films and television series. Her 2012 song, ‘Man to Man, Woman to Woman’, written and performed in collaboration with former Eurythmics star Dave Stewart, was chosen as the theme song for an anti-bigotry campaign by Hillary Clinton. Between 2016 and 2018, she starred, incredibly, as twin sisters in Mars, an intense sci-fi drama on National Geographic that focused on a future human trip to Mars. She has also been associated with the steampunk subculture, appearing as Anna Fang in Mortal Engines and making a guest appearance in the Netflix series Altered Carbon. She returned to the music scene in early 2021 with a new single, ‘Utopia’.

Jihae was born in Seoul, South Korea but had an international upbringing and was multilingual by the time she’d reached high school age. She graduated from university with a degree in Political Science, but rather than follow her father into the world of diplomacy, she took a cue from her opera-trained mother and began to pursue a career in music. She set up a record label, and in 2007, self-released her debut album, My Heart is an Elephant. After releasing a follow-up, Elvis is Still Alive in 2008, she made an ambitious step forward with her third album, Fire Burning Rain, which was a rock opera created in collaboration with Oscar-winning playwright John Patrick Shanley. Her next album, Illusion of You, featured a collaboration with singer-songwriter icon Leonard Cohen.

With ambitious projects part of her nature, it’ll be fascinating to see what Jihae does next.