page_title: Joon Lee
section_title: 2018–present: Solid reunion and Into the Light, fifth studio album
hierarchical_section_title: Joon Lee / Music career / 2018–present: Solid reunion and Into the Light, fifth studio album
caption_attribution_description: English: Joon Lee Into the Light concert 2018
context_page_description: John Lee, better known by his Korean name, Joon Lee, is a Korean American rapper, singer, songwriter, DJ, and most notably one-third of the South Korean R&B/hip-hop trio, Solid. He introduced turntablism to Korea in the mid '90s. He rose to fame and gained popularity in 1995 with the breakout hit "Holding the End of the Night", from Solid's second album The Magic of 8 Ball.
  Lee is regarded as part of the first generation of Korean rappers like the members of Uptown and Hyundo Lee. He became not only one of the most sought after rappers in the South Korean music industry of the '90s collaborating with renown artists including 015B, Jinyoung Park, Roo'ra, and Uptown but also an inspiration to the next generation of rappers – Gary of Leessang, Jinpyo Kim and Flowsik to name a few. Lee, with two other members of Solid, was at the forefront of bringing the American hip-hop sound to South Korean audience and played a pivotal role establishing the genre during a time when ballad and dance music were prevalent.
context_section_description: To prepare for the Solid's reunion and the album release, a weekly meeting – lasting two to four hours – took place via Skype every Tuesday since the end of 2016, and the members discussed every little details that have gone into the new album in twenty one years. Beginning September 2017, Lee has been splitting his time between California, U.S. and Seoul, Korea traveling to the latter once a month – two weeks at a time – to move forward with Into the Light (2018).
  As with their previous albums, Lee wrote his own rap parts, which took much longer to write and record than his previous works. He later stated that he felt the most pressured as he had been away from the entertainment industry the longest compared to the other members. Only hesitation that held him back from the comeback was the fear of not meeting the expectations of the fans who remembered Solid from the '90s, however, he decided to proceed for the love of making music was greater.
  Early March, Solid announced their long-awaited comeback on official social media and released series of teasers for the forthcoming album on the official YouTube channel. The very first teaser plays an excerpt from the 1996 Solid tour, Deliverance, in which Lee addresses to fans at the end of the Seoul concert that "This is not the end of Solid" insinuating that the new chapter of the trio is to begin while heightening the anticipation of the album release.
  During early promotion of Into the Light, Lee repeatedly expressed the awkwardness of getting back the celebrity status for his life has long been away from the spotlight. Yet, he also expressed how much he enjoys and loves taking everything on their own terms this time around without any contract with a label or a management company.
  Solid released their fifth studio album, Into the Light, on March 22, 2018, peaking at number 1 on iTunes R&B/Soul album chart in Korea and number 5 on iTunes K-pop album charts in Korea and the U.S. The album received rave reviews having everyone, fans and critics alike, agreed that the forward sound of Solid's musicianship hasn't been lost at all after not working together for over two decades. Solid surpassed everyone's expectation by presenting the much evolved and progressive current sound of Solid not dwelling on their glory-days sound of the '90s.
  May 18 through 20th, 2018, the trio started the second tour of their career, Into the Light, with packed audiences at Blue Square iMarket Hall in Seoul, Korea, in which Lee performed with an elite Canadian beatboxer KRNFX playing his turntable set.
caption: Lee performing "Happy Ending" during Into the Light concert, Seoul, Korea on May 20, 2018
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