Kim Jae Joong is a singer, songwriter, and actor who is enormously popular in Japan and his native South Korea. ∙ Joong got his big break at age 17, when the South Korean agency S.M. Entertainment added the aspiring singer to their new boy band TVXQ! ∙ TVXQ!’s MIROTIC – The 4th Album topped the South Korean charts in 2008 and won the country’s Golden Disc Award for Album of the Year. ∙ In 2009, Joong and two other members of TVXQ! formed the pop group JYJ, which had three consecutive No. 1 albums in South Korea, beginning with 2010’s The Beginning. ∙ He scored his first major acting job in the 2009 South Korean TV film Heaven’s Postman, which led to several award-winning roles in South Korean and Japanese productions. ∙ Joong’s first solo release, the rock-oriented 2013 EP Mine, topped the South Korean albums chart while reaching the Top 10 in Japan. ∙ Love Covers, released in 2019, was his third consecutive chart-topping album in Japan and was named one of the three best Asian albums of the year by the Japan Gold Disc Awards.