Insooni
A singer who overcame, with her voice alone, the stares she drew for being mixed-race, and stood at center stage for nearly half a century.
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- FamilyKim Yang-bae
Cut off from her own family, she raised her mixed-race daughter alone; Insooni could not bear to leave her behind and so turned down the move to America (1932–2005).
- PatronHan Baek-hee
The producer who recognized the singing talent of Insooni, then a backup dancer, and launched her with the Hee Sisters; known as Kim Wan-sun's aunt.
- ProducerPark Jin-young
In 1996 his song "Again" put her, then in a slump, back before young audiences, and in 2023 they joined hands again, 27 years later, on Golden Girls.
- FriendshipCho PD
In 2004 he brought Insooni in as a featured artist on "Friend," linking her to the hip-hop generation.
- ProducerLee Hyun-seung
The composer who worked on the 17th album “Insooni” and wrote “Father” with the singer in mind.
- FriendshipLee Eun-mi
A younger vocalist who shared the stage in Golden Girls; the two released a debut song as the same group in 2023.
I. The child of Baegui-ri · 1957–1977
(Birth) Insooni was born in April 1957 in Baegui-ri, Cheongsan-myeon, Pocheon County (today Yeoncheon County), Gyeonggi Province, South Korea. The birth name is Kim In-soon. The father was an African American soldier serving with the US Forces in Korea; the mother, Kim Yang-bae, was Korean. The father returned to the United States after the daughter was born, and Insooni has said in many interviews that they cannot recall so much as the sight of the father's departing back. (Mother) The mother is said to have been cut off by her own family for bearing a mixed-race child, and to have raised the daughter alone. Around the age of twelve, Insooni exchanged letters with the father and was invited to come to America, but turned the offer down, unable to leave the mother behind alone. Contact with the father ended after that. Insooni later revealed that another American soldier had been a father figure in their childhood. (Borders) Growing up as a child of a different skin color in northern Gyeonggi, near the US military bases, was not easy. Insooni has confided a long struggle with the confusion of belonging fully to neither Korea nor America. Insooni finished Baegui Elementary School and Cheongsan Middle School, but family circumstances ruled out high school; the diploma came later, through the equivalency exam. (Livelihood) Before singing was a dream, it was a way to make a living. In the 1970s, Korean popular music was taking in players and singers who had honed their craft on the Eighth US Army stages and were moving into broadcasting, and the rhythms and vocal styles of Black music had already seeped onto domestic stages through that passage. At nineteen, twenty, carrying the family's livelihood, Insooni would come knocking at the door of that stage.
II. Hee Sisters and the color era · 1978–1986
(Hee Sisters) The person who first opened the way to a singing career was the producer Han Baek-hee, known as Kim Wan-sun's aunt. Working under Han as a backup dancer, Insooni won recognition as a singer and in 1978 debuted as a member of the three-woman group Hee Sisters. The title track, “Silver Willow,” is said to have stayed at number one for seven straight weeks. TBC vanished two years later in the forced media mergers, so Insooni's first success coincided with the final days of a broadcaster. (Going solo) In 1980 Insooni went solo with the first album, “Fate,” and in 1981 made the name stick with “The One Who Must Leave.” Color television broadcasting, launched that December, turned singers from people one heard into people one watched. For a performer of big gestures, dance and striking stage costumes, it was a made-to-measure era. (Disco) In 1983 “Night After Night” became a major hit, lifting Insooni into the ranks of star singers. Singing while dancing over a fast disco rhythm made for a stage rarely seen at the time. (Rhythm Touch) Insooni led the backup dance team Insooni and Rhythm Touch. Kim Wan-sun, who passed through this team, later became the emblem of the Korean dance singer. At one end of the lineage of 1980s Korean dance music, in other words, stood Insooni's stage.
The breakout hit that, as color television was just taking hold, stamped the stage of a singing, dancing mixed-race performer onto the whole nation.
- A driving disco rhythm (the four-beat dance music fashionable in 1970s clubs) runs from start to finish, making the body respond first on a pop stage then dominated by ballads.
- An analog band recording in which horns and electric guitar trade short repeated phrases (hooks), it captures the sound of Korean dance pop in the early 1980s just as it was.
- The vocal leans toward powerful belting rather than ornament. It sounds like a blend of Black vocal technique and the mass appeal of the trot era.
- The song still serves to bring the audience to its feet late in Insooni's concerts. Scenes of sing-alongs across generations have often been reported.
III. The long nights on stage · 1987–1995
(Slump) In the late 1980s, as the relationship with Han Baek-hee ended, Insooni's television appearances dropped noticeably. For nearly a decade afterward, Insooni sang mainly in nightclubs and at gospel concerts. Hits were rare, but the singing never stopped. The experience of these years later became the foundation for Insooni's self-description as a working singer rather than a star. (Kim Hyung-seok) “Practicing Goodbye,” released in 1989, was written by Kim Hyung-seok, then a newcomer composer. It went largely unnoticed, but a few years later Kim would return to arrange Insooni's comeback. In 1991 came “A Good Woman.” It was a time when the record market was shifting from LP to cassette and CD, and the new generation's dance music had taken over the chart shows. (Family) In 1994 Insooni married, and later had a daughter. The singer has shared these facts on television and in interviews. (Encore) That same year, an appearance on KBS's “Open Concert” became a turning point. As Insooni recalls it, on that stage, at the end of a long slump, came an unexpected call for an encore, and Insooni sang the folk song “Changbu taryeong” unaccompanied. That one song, Insooni says, turned the room around. Becoming a regular on the program, Insooni settled in as a singer whose vocal power no one could deny, and in 1995 received the singer's prize at the Korea Broadcasting Awards. (Weight) Some observers note, however, that the repetition of classical-style stages in the public hall cast a heavy image over the singer, then in their thirties. Insooni needed a song to meet younger listeners again.
IV. Again, once more · 1996–2006
(Park Jin-young) Park Jin-young, met on the set of a live broadcast, urged Insooni to sing not trot-flavored material but songs young people listened to. A month later, the song Park handed over was “Again,” with words and music by Park and an arrangement by Kim Hyung-seok. Insooni recalled singing the single syllable of the title hundreds of times in the studio, yet said they held on in the spirit of learning. With this song, released in 1996, Insooni stood on the chart shows once more. (Recognition) In 1997 Insooni received the Mongnyeon Medal of the Order of Civil Merit, and in 1999 took the stage at Carnegie Hall in New York. Among Korean pop singers, only Cho Yong-pil and Patti Kim had done so before. Insooni also broadened their stage range by playing Velma Kelly in the musical “Chicago.” In 2001 came the album “My Turn.” (Study abroad) In 2002 Insooni left for the United States to study jazz, and released a jazz album the following year. A singer twenty-five years into a career had, in effect, gone back to being a student. (My friend) While Insooni was studying in America, a demo by Cho PD arrived by way of Jung Won-kwan, formerly of Sobangcha. Drawn to the lyrics, Insooni featured in 2004 on “My Friend,” a track from Cho PD's album. The meeting of hip-hop and a diva nearing fifty was one of the most talked-about collaborations of the year, and it carried the name Insooni to teenagers who had never heard it. (Generations) That same year Insooni released the album “A to Z,” and won a main prize at the KBS Music Awards in both 2004 and 2005. In 2006 came the remake “Passion.” In an age when MP3s and cellphone ringtones were taking the place of records, Insooni returned to the center as a voice cutting across genres and generations.
The comeback song, written by Park Jin-young and arranged by Kim Hyung-seok, that after a long slump set Insooni before young audiences once more.
- Over drum-machine beats and synthesizers, hallmarks of Seoul dance pop in the mid-1990s, rides a rhythm and blues (R&B) delivery drawn from Black music.
- The one-syllable title is the song's central hook. Insooni recalled singing that single syllable hundreds of times in the studio, an anecdote that hints at what Park Jin-young's beat-by-beat direction was like.
- In passages where the big Open Concert voice is deliberately held down and the words are clipped short to ride the rhythm, one hears a lighter, younger grain, unlike the singer of before.
- When the two met again in Golden Girls in 2023, this song was often recalled as their first collaboration.
A Cho PD track that Insooni, then studying jazz in America, joined after being drawn to the demo's lyrics; it introduced the name Insooni anew to teenagers.
- The song belongs to Cho PD. The rapper takes the verses (the sections that unfold the story), and Insooni takes the refrain (chorus), lifting the song's emotion.
- The heart of the song is the contrast between a dry, talky rap and a wide-ranging soul vocal. It is often cited as a case of hip-hop and adult-pop audiences meeting within a single song.
- Its theme is a look back at old friendship and the passing years. The voice of a singer approaching fifty lends that feeling its conviction.
- In 2004 it won the hip-hop music video category at the Mnet music awards. When Cho PD re-recorded the song in 2015, Son Seung-yeon sang the refrain.
V. A Goose's Dream · 2007–2012
(Goose) “A Goose's Dream” was originally released in 1997 by Carnival, the project of Lee Juck and Kim Dong-ryul. Little noticed at the time, it spread widely once Insooni sang it on stages such as KBS's “Yoon Do-hyun's Love Letter” and it caught on as Cyworld background music. It was officially released as a digital single in 2007 and reached number one on a music show that November. As listeners read Insooni's life, lived past prejudice, onto the song, the remake came to be heard as the singer's autobiography. (Father) In 2009 Insooni released the 17th studio album, “Insooni,” the first in five years. Made with the composer Lee Hyun-seung, it had “Fantasia” as its title track, alongside “To My Daughter” and “Father.” Lee wrote “Father” with Insooni in mind, and the story of a singer with no memory of their father naturally merged with it. In 2010 it became the most-played song on radio. In 2009 Insooni received the Presidential Award at the Korea Culture and Arts Awards and pledged the entire prize money to a children's foundation. (Carnegie) In February 2010, at Carnegie Hall's invitation, Insooni gave a second New York concert, reported as a first for a Korean singer. (I Am a Singer) In August 2011, after long declining to appear, Insooni joined MBC's “I Am a Singer.” On the first stage Insooni sang “Father,” confessing it was the song they had least wanted to sing, and took first place. Bobby Kim, Jang Hye-jin, Kim Jo-han and Yoon Min-soo, among others, performed in the same episode. A new medium, the competition show, lifted a singer in their mid-fifties back up the digital charts. That same year Insooni also released “Uppercut.”
A 1997 song by Carnival (Lee Juck·Kim Dong-ryul), sung anew, that became the symbol of Insooni's life lived past prejudice.
- A ballad opened quietly by piano and strings. Its backbone is a form of gradual build: with each verse, instruments stack layer upon layer, pushing up toward the final chorus.
- Unlike the restrained male duet of the original, Insooni begins low, almost speaking, and bursts at the climax into long, soul-style high notes. This is where the same song turns from confession into declaration.
- The song voices, in the first person, a vow never to give up on flying, even before eyes that mock the dream. Listeners heard in it Insooni's history as a mixed-race singer.
- It spread first through live stages and Cyworld background music before the official release.
Raised without ever knowing her father's face, she called this the song she least wanted to sing, and with it she took first place on her debut stage on I Am a Singer in 2011.
- Composer Lee Hyun-seung wrote the song with Insooni in mind. The arrangement, restrained and led by the piano, lays bare every tremor and breath in her voice.
- The song speaks as a belated confession of feelings never conveyed to a father. For listeners who know her story, the lyrics are heard on two levels at once.
- Rather than letting the emotion burst out in the final stretch, she keeps it pressed down to the very end. It sounds as though a singer famed for her vocal power chose, this time, to sing less.
- In August 2011, the sight of the audience judges weeping at her I Am a Singer performance became the talk of the country, and a song released two years earlier climbed back up the digital charts.
VI. Haemil · 2013–2026
(Haemil) In 2013 she founded Haemil School, an alternative school in Hongcheon, Gangwon Province, for children from multicultural families, and became chair of its board. Haemil is a native Korean word for the clear sky that comes after rain. She has said she started it hoping that mixed-race children would not suffer the discrimination she had. That same year she released the album Umbrella. (Challenges) Even as she approached sixty, she never stopped taking on new things. In 2015 she entered a bodybuilding competition, and she played Grizabella in the musical Cats. In 2017 she sang the theme song for the PyeongChang Winter Olympics torch relay. (Golden Girls) In 2023, KBS's Golden Girls was a program in which Park Jin-young brought together Insooni, Park Mi-kyung, Shin Hyo-bum and Lee Eun-mi to form a girl group. It amounted to a reunion with Park Jin-young twenty-seven years after “Again.” In December of that year the four released their debut single, “One Last Time,” and went on to perform in Japan. That year they also won the rookie award in the show and variety category at the KBS Entertainment Awards. For Insooni, it was a rookie award that came more than forty years after her debut. (Today) She remains an active performer, receiving Pearl S. Buck International's 'Woman of Influence Award' as recently as 2025. In the age of YouTube and streaming, footage of her old performances is being rediscovered by a new generation. For someone who has always called herself not a composer or a producer but a person who sings, the act of standing on stage for so long has itself become her résumé.
The debut single of Golden Girls, the group Park Jin-young formed from Insooni · Park Mi-kyung · Shin Hyo-bum · Lee Eun-mi, it marked a reunion twenty-seven years after “Again.”
- Four veteran vocalists divide the song into parts and hand it off from one to the next. Part of the pleasure lies in hearing their distinct timbres emerge in turn — Insooni's soul, Lee Eun-mi's husky voice.
- Like an idol group, it comes with assigned parts and choreography. It sounds like the texture of 1990s rhythm and blues (R&B) revived with present-day production.
- As the eldest of the group, Insooni tends less to lead with high-register ad-libs (improvised melodic additions) than to anchor the center of the harmony.
- It entered the Melon Hot 100 right after its release. Some, however, judged its chart performance disappointing next to the buzz the broadcast generated.
Lesser-known stories
Insooni's comeback is usually said to have begun with “Again.” She herself, though, names the 1994 Open Concert as her first miracle. On a stage she took after a long slump, an unexpected encore call came, and the song she sang without accompaniment was neither pop nor soul but “Changbu Taryeong,” a folk song from Gyeonggi Province. That the turning point for a singer remembered for her Black-music vocal style was a Korean folk song is seldom mentioned, overshadowed by the success of the dance tracks that followed. The lineage of Korean pop singers who have played Carnegie Hall runs Cho Yong-pil (1981), Patti Kim (1989), Insooni (1999·2010), Lee Sun-hee (2011). Until Lee Sun-hee, Insooni was the only one among them to have stood on that stage twice. Reports at the time said the 2010 concert came about at Carnegie Hall's own invitation. The official recording of “A Goose's Dream” came out only after the song had already become famous. She sang it on stage first, and the recording was not released until 2007. A song that had drawn little notice on the Carnival album by its original writers, Lee Juck and Kim Dong-ryul, became widely known a decade later through another singer's voice. In the 1980s, her backup dance troupe, Rhythm Touch, was a small cradle of Korean dance-music history. Kim Wan-sun passed through it. Kim Wan-sun, who became the emblem of dance singers in the late 1980s, learned to dance behind Insooni on stage. The connection gets only a brief mention in each of their biographies and is rarely traced as a lineage of its own.
Glossary notes 📚🔎
Disco
(Meaning) From the French discothèque, a place for dancing where records (disc) are played. (In Korean pop music) A fast dance music that was popular in American clubs in the 1970s and made its way to Korea. Its hallmark is the bass drum thumping on each of the four beats of a bar. In the early 1980s, songs like “Every Night” brought this rhythm into Korean pop. Picture jumping rope in gym class, hopping again and again at an even interval in time with the beat. The disco bass drum is exactly that steady stamping of feet.
Back dancer
(Meaning) Literally a dancer who dances in the back — an English-style expression coined in Korea. (In Korean pop music) A dancer who performs behind a singer, helping to fill out the stage. Before her debut Insooni worked as a back dancer, and after becoming a star she led her own back-dancer troupe, Rhythm Touch. Picture the friends doing hand motions behind the lead singer at a school talent show. Just as next year's lead sometimes comes from among those friends, that is how Kim Wan-sun grew.
Night stage
(In Korean pop music) Singing at places that open at night, such as nightclubs, hotel lounges and entertainment venues. It was where singers whose television appearances had dwindled made a living or kept their skills sharp. Insooni sang on this circuit for nearly ten years from the late 1980s. It is like an athlete who wasn't picked for the school team staying sharp by playing steadily in neighborhood games. Those who hold on that way sometimes make the team again.
Remake
(Meaning) The English word remake means to make (make) again (re). (In Korean pop music) Rearranging and re-recording a song that has already been released, whether someone else's or one's own older work. It is done with the original artist's permission, and the royalties are shared. Insooni's “A Goose's Dream” is a remake of Carnival's 1997 song, and it became a far bigger hit than the original. In cooking terms, it is like taking your grandmother's kimchi stew recipe and making it again your own way. The ingredients may be the same, but the flavor takes after whoever is cooking. (Elsewhere) In film and television, too, remaking an old work with new actors and a new director is called a remake.
Featuring
(Meaning) The English word featuring means to spotlight or to present someone. (In Korean pop music) A guest singer joining another singer's song to perform part of it. The song belongs to the original singer, and the guest's name is attached beside the title. “Friend” is Cho PD's song, and Insooni, featured on it, took the chorus. It is like inviting a friend from another class to handle one section of your group presentation. The presentation belongs to your group, but it shines brighter thanks to that friend.
Digital single
(Meaning) A single means one song; the word originally referred to a small record holding only one or two tracks. (In Korean pop music) A way of releasing one song or a few only on online music sites, without a physical record such as a CD. It became common in the mid-2000s as MP3s and music sites spread. Insooni's “A Goose's Dream” also came out as a digital single in 2007. It is like posting a single piece of writing on the class bulletin board instead of making a printed anthology. It can go out quickly, and anyone who wants to read it can find it right away.
Competition show
(Meaning) Gyeongyeon (競演) means to perform (演) while competing (競). (In Korean pop music) A television program in which singers take the stage each week and are ranked by the audience or a panel of judges. In 2011, MBC's I Am a Singer caused a sensation by pitting already famous singers against one another. Insooni took first place there with “Father.” It is like a class-against-class choir contest where the scores are announced every time. With rankings at stake the tension runs high, and a song sung well gets talked about even beyond the school gates.