A bolt from the blue. That’s one way to describe Lee Youngji.
At just 18, the high schooler has already made history by being the first and youngest female rapper to win Mnet’s High School Rapper. Despite only rapping for six months before the competition, her win wasn’t some cosmic fluke either. Youngji wowed the judges with the intensity of her sheer talent from the very first episode, effortlessly beating out her competition in both cyphers and freestyle rapping. Perhaps it’s the fact that she can take something so deeply personal and use it as an ignition to set the stage on fire, like in her third episode solo where she raps about her father’s absence. It’s no wonder she was immediately signed after winning the show!
Youngji has since launched a total of nine singles, three of which being collaborations, since her debut. Having already shared a stage with Changmo and collaborated with well-known hip-hop and R&B artistes such as Nafla and Loopy, Youngji is well on her way to success! With her immense success in just a year, she’s well on her way to working with bigger names and perhaps one day even her idol and muse, Jay Park.
Here are the top three tracks you should check out from Lee Youngji:
1. Dark Room
Youngji’s debut track sees her rapping about how our biggest enemies are often ourselves and it’s easy for us to get trapped in a Dark Room if we’re not careful.
Shut up, my only enemy in this room is me uh
I know myself, I’m getting backwards
2. I Do What I Want (feat. HYOYEON)
Earlier this year, Youngji teamed up with SNSD’s Hyoyeon in the final episode of Good Girl. The song strongly resonates with both Youngji and Hyoyeon who are just rappers discovering their passions and doing their own thang.
STOP MAKIN ALL THAT NOISE
I’m doing watever I do
3. Compromise
Compromise is possibly Youngji’s most musically ambitious track yet as she weaves in and out of verses with plenty of editing magic.
Too many standards and too much noise
But we are not perfect
