Sohyang

Kim So-hyang 김소향
Sohyang in June 2022
Background information
Birth name	Kim So-hyang
Also known as	Sohyang
Born	(1978-04-05) April 5, 1978 (age 46) Gwangju, South Jeolla Province, South Korea
Genres	CCM, gospel, Pop music
Occupation(s)	Singer, author
Instruments	Vocals guitar
Years active	1996–present
Labels	KQ Entertainment[1]
Spouse	Kim Hee-jun ​ (m. 1998)​
Website	cafe.daum.net/sohyang

Kim So-hyang (Korean: 김소향; Hanja: 金昭享, born April 5, 1978), known mononymously as Sohyang, is a South Korean singer-songwriter.

According to Sohyang, her goal is to use her voice to comfort people who are going through difficult times.^[2] Sohyang is also an author of fiction, having published multiple fantasy novels since 2013,^[3] the most well-known of them being Crystal Castle and Anaxion.^[3] She has been dubbed by some journalists in the international media as the "Korean Mariah Carey".^[3]

Sohyang made her debut in 1996 with the song "Mr."(선생님). She was practicing in a recording studio and composer Jo Hwan-gon heard her singing and asked her to record a song with him. After being tested by him, Sohyang released her first single and then went on a tour with Jo Hwan-gon and participated in many concerts and musical performances.^[4] She joined her husband's family band "POS" and released several CCM albums. Sohyang became one of the most popular and influencing Christian Contemporary Music singers of Korea. She held concerts in around 50 countries until now.^[5] In 2014, she became the first non-American artist to sing the American national anthem at an NBA game.^[6] She achieved further fame when she sang with Kirk Franklin.^[7]

Since 2012, Sohyang has participated multiple times on various television music competition programs Immortal Songs 2, King of Mask Singer, and I Am a Singer 2, winning three times on Immortal Songs 2 with songs "Lean on Me", "Bridge over Troubled Water" and in 2023, "One Million Roses". She had also set a record on King of Mask Singer in 2017, before it was broken by Son Seung-Yeon.

After winning the Michael Bolton special episode on Immortal Songs 2 with a score of 442 points (fifth-highest ever), Michael Bolton—who described Sohyang as a "virtuoso"^[8][9]—asked Sohyang to tour South Korea with him, and they performed many concerts together throughout the country.^[10] Furthermore, her performance of "Lean on Me" won an award at the 2015 Banff World Media Festival.^[11]

In 2016 Sohyang was awarded the Grand Prize of the Seoul Success Award in the Culture category.^[12][13] In Disney's movie Moana, Sohyang provided the singing voice of the protagonist in the Korean-dubbed version.^[14][15] Sohyang also gives lectures about singing and vocal technique at Baekseok University in Cheonan City.^[16]

In the first half of 2017, Sohyang appeared on MBC's King of Mask Singer as "Spirited Lady" for the show's 2nd anniversary and became the winner six consecutive times (Generation 53-58), making her the female singer with the highest number of consecutive wins ever achieved to that time (second highest overall) before losing her crown in July 2017 and departing from the show after appearing for 14 consecutive weeks.^[17] Sohyang sang the main OST, "Wind Song" (바람의 노래), which is a remake of Cho Yong-pil's original song, for the Drama Confession Couple (고백부부). This OST was at No. 1 on the charts on Melon (online music service) for several weeks and additionally won the 1st place on Music Bank on November 24 in 2017.^[18] She was given a special stage on which to perform the main OST "Wind Song" at the KBS Drama Awards on the last day of 2017.^[19] Sohyang performed at the MBC Entertainment Awards 2017 and was awarded the Special Prize in the Music Show category for her participation in King of Mask Singer.^[20][21] She became the King of the show with the highest number of consecutive wins ever achieved as a female contestant at that time.

During the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, ice dancer Yura Min and Alexander Gamelin performed to Sohyang's rendition of "Arirang Alone".^[22] Furthermore, during the opening ceremony of the 2018 Winter Paralympics in Pyeongchang Sohyang performed, together with Sumi Jo, the song "Here as One", which they both recorded specifically for this occasion.^[23]

Sohyang is a devout Christian. She first began singing in her local community, with no aspirations of pursuing a career as a professional singer.^[3] Sohyang's parents divorced when she was in her third year of high school. Due to this, Sohyang experienced great financial difficulties, and, according to her, was often very sad as a result. She has said that she used to listen to artists Mariah Carey, Whitney Houston, and Celine Dion often, whose music helped her to get through these difficult times.^[24] In 2017 she was quoted as having said that her favorite album is still Mariah Carey's Music Box.^[25][26]

In 1998, at the age of twenty, Sohyang married Kim Hee-jun, the drummer of her band POS. Soon afterwards she was diagnosed with uterine cancer; due to the early detection, she was able to survive the cancer, but was rendered infertile.^[2][27] Her sister-in-law is the guitarist JinJoo Lee from DNCE.^[28][29]

Sohyang achieved the highest average rank of every contestant on I Am a Singer 2 ever.^[44] Furthermore, she never placed outside of the Top 3 during the whole time she was present in the show.

(If the number of rounds won is written in bold, this means that she won the most rounds in that episode.)

Sohyang was the first female singer to ever achieve 6 consecutive victories at that time and therefore set a new record, which was later broken by Son Seung-yeon ("The East Invincibility"). Sohyang received an average of 65.96 votes out of 99 every round, which was ranked in Top 10 of highest average scores of all Mask Kings and Top 3 highest average score of all female Mask Kings for a period of time.

In 2020, Sohyang was a cast member of Begin Again Korea for a total of 5 episodes (Ep. 6 - 10 of Season 4), and sang a total of 20 songs as the lead artist.