Lee Jung-shin South Korean Rapper and Singer From Ilsan-gu

Early life

Lee Jung-shin, who goes by Jungshin, was born on 15 September 1991 in South Korea. He grew up with his parents and an older brother in Ilsan and finished high school at Jung Bal High School there. He later studied at Kyung Hee Cyber University. In 2009 he began training under FNC Entertainment.

Career

Lee joined the rock band CNBLUE in 2009 as its bassist, in the place of a member who had left. In the group he also raps and sings backup vocals. The band debuted in South Korea in January 2010, and its other members are Jung Yong-hwa, Kang Min-hyuk and Lee Jong-hyun. FNC Entertainment is his label, and the band's music is described as pop rock and rap rock.

He branched out into acting in 2012 with the KBS2 family drama Seoyoung, My Daughter, which reached a peak viewership rating of 47.6 percent. His performance drew praise and earned several Best New Actor nominations from Korean award bodies. Supporting roles followed in the period drama The Blade and Petal in 2013 and the melodrama Temptation in 2014; the latter brought him his first acting award, Best New Rising Star at the third DramaFever Awards. In 2015 he took his first leading part in the KBS2 drama special Thank You, My Son, and he also became a co-host of the Mnet music programme M Countdown with Key of SHINee, which he left in 2016.

In 2016 he starred alongside Jung Il-woo and Park So-dam in the tvN romantic comedy Cinderella with Four Knights, and he released his first solo single, "Confession", for the drama's soundtrack. He appeared in the historical romance My Sassy Girl in 2017, the same year he was cast in the fantasy romance Longing Heart. On 22 July 2019 he released the Japanese single "Blue Orion", and an album with the song and four further Japanese tracks appeared on 25 September. After his military service he returned to acting in March 2021 in the web series Summer Guys, then joined the cast of Sh**ting Stars with Lee Sung-kyung and Kim Young-dae, which he signed on to in September 2021 and which aired in 2022.

Recognition

His first acting prize was the DramaFever award for Temptation. In 2019 the International Network of Street Papers named one of his photographs among the five finalists for Best Photograph in its awards; he had taken the pictures during a volunteer trip to Myanmar and given them for free to the magazine The Big Issue Korea. The winner was announced at a ceremony in Hannover, Germany, on 19 June of that year.

Public roles

Lee has taken part in charitable projects organised by the LOVE FNC Foundation. In February 2018 he travelled to Myanmar with his brother and the singer Kim Seol-hyun, and in June of that year the two brothers held a photo exhibition in Seoul, titled We Blew Away Dandelion Puffs, with proceeds going to a scholarship programme in Myanmar. In April 2019 he donated 10 million won to relief efforts for forest fires in Gangwon Province. In October 2021 he held a live broadcast with the photographer Alex Kim to support a primary school in the Himalayas.

Personal life

Lee began his mandatory military service on 31 July 2018. During it he hosted the Armed Forces Festival in October 2018 and the military music concert marking the 70th anniversary of the armed forces' founding. He was discharged on 19 March 2020.