Raina South Korean Singer Born 1989 in Ulsan

Early life

Raina, whose birth name is Oh Hye-rin, is a South Korean singer born on 7 May 1989 in Ulsan. Her schooling included Mu-geo Elementary School, Sungkwang Girls' High School and Korea Art High School. Before her debut she tried out with JYP Entertainment as a rapper and then joined Pledis Entertainment. She also worked as a barista at a Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf shop, auditioned for the Mnet competition Superstar K and studied at the SM Academy.

Career

Raina debuted in November 2009 as a member of the girl group After School, joining for the release of the group's single "Because of You", which reached number one on the Gaon Digital Chart and earned a "triple crown" on the SBS music programme Inkigayo. On 18 June 2010 she made her debut in Orange Caramel, a sub-unit of After School, performing "Magic Girl" on KBS Music Bank. She was also part of A.S. Red & Blue in 2011. By the listings used here she belonged to After School from 2009 to 2015 and to Orange Caramel from 2010 to 2016.

Alongside her group activity she began writing lyrics. She wrote the words to the Orange Caramel songs "Still..." and "In this Place", and to the After School songs "Love Love Love" and "Timeless". Her first solo recording was a song for the soundtrack of My Shining Girl, released in February 2012.

On 12 June 2014 she released the R&B duet "A Midsummer Night's Sweetness" with the rapper San E. The song topped the major South Korean music charts soon after release and placed fourth on the year-end Gaon Digital Chart. That October she became the first member of After School to debut as a solo artist, with the single "Reset", whose title track was "You End, and Me" and whose b-side was "Repertoire". Her second digital single, "I Don't Know", followed on 24 November 2015, and in June 2016 she and San E released a second duet, "Sugar and Me".

Soundtrack work became a regular part of her output. In June 2017 she released "When Rain Falls" for the MBC drama Lookout, with her bandmate E-young taking part in the lyrics, composition and arrangement. She then issued the single album Loop, whose title track features Aron of NU'EST. In August 2018 she put out "It's Okay", part of a project single with the producer Bumzu, and on 5 September 2018 she released "Home", the fifth soundtrack single for the SBS drama Your Honor.

On 17 December 2019 it was reported that Raina had left Pledis Entertainment when her contract expired. Her first project after leaving was an X-MAS collaboration in April 2020, in which she recorded her own version of Lena Park's "Ann". She next recorded "Love Is Danger" for the KBS drama Once Again with Song Yuvin, a former member of Myteen who had appeared on Produce X 101. She later became part of the cast of Miss Back, an MBN programme about the return of former idol singers, hosted by Baek Ji-young; it is her one listed screen credit. On 4 December 2021 she signed with Aer Music. Her music is classed as K-pop, and her earlier agency affiliations on record are JYP Entertainment and Pledis Entertainment.

Public roles

Raina is listed as having been affiliated with two agencies, JYP Entertainment, where she auditioned, and Pledis Entertainment, the agency she joined before debuting with After School.