Li Yin Zhang (; ), also known in Korea by her Korean name RiIn Jang, is the first and currently only Chinese solo singer to break into the Korean music industry. Li Yin has been nicknamed the "Chinese BoA". She speaks both Mandarin and Korean, and has released music in both Korea and China. She also speaks English but has not yet released any records fully in English.

Biography

Li Yin was born on 18 February 1989 in Sichuan, China. She grew up in a musical family, as both of her parents were professional violinists. As a child, her parents took her to their rock concerts and exposed her to a variety of music. At three years old, she began to learn the violin. Li Yin liked classical, American and European music so much that she says she never sang children's songs when she was a child.
As she grew older, Li Yin became more into pop music than rock music. She had to secretly listen to pop music because her parents were against it. When she was twelve, she went to a middle school founded by the Sichuan Music College after scoring the highest with her violin-playing, but she chose to become a singer instead. She was selected as one of the top-ten teenage singers in a national singing competition in Beijing. Eventually, her parents began to support her dream to become a singer.

Debut

Singles: "Timeless" / "Y (Why...)"

Li Yin was discovered by SM Entertainment. She started training in 2003 at the age of 13 and for 3 years, she special singing and dance training under SM Entertainment. While doing so, she discovered her R&B talent.

Li Yin's debut was greatly anticipated not only in Korea, but the whole of Asia because of the promotion of her being "The Next BoA" and "The Chinese BoA." Before her official debut, it was already known that her song was a duet with popular TVXQ-member Xiah Junsu, which caused even more excitement and anticipation among the general public.

On 8 September 2006, Li Yin released her first single, "Timeless". On the first day of release, she ranked #2 on the online charts of SBS Inkigayo. The song was placed #1 on Daum's Music Video chart as well as hitting the highest search number on the famous Korean search engine Naver. The PV was ranked #1 on Melon's Video Chart for 30 days .

In early 2007, Li Yin promoted the second track of her debut single called "Y (Why...)", which is a power ballad. SM Entertainment also released a "Timeless" documentary version of her "Y (Why...)" PV. It featured her hardships while training, as well as many behind-the-scenes clips of her promotion of "Timeless", including never-before-seen footage of her and Xiah Junsu.

She also performed with boy-band TVXQ at their second Korean concert in Seoul, South Korea on 23 February 2007. She sang BoA's part in the song "Try-Angle", previously performed by BoA, TVXQ and The TRAX.

She also performed "Timeless" with Xiah Junsu at the Hallyu Expo in Korea on 8 March 2007. In July, along with Kangta, TVXQ, The Grace and Super Junior, she performed in Korea for the SMTown Summer Concert 2007.

Album: 星愿 - I WILL

After a long year of absence without releasing any records, Zhang Li Yin announced during an interview early December 2007 that her long-awaited debut album will be released in February 2008. The album is titled 星愿 - I WILL (lit. Star Wish: I Will ). It has been released in Korea, China, Japan, Singapore and Malaysia.

References

1989 births
Living people
C-pop singers
Chinese musicians
Chinese singers
K-pop singers
People from Sichuan
Pop musicians