Last year a cute, goofy fifteen-year-old walked onto the Kpopstar audition floor, introduced herself, went into an adorably clumsy dance, and continued on (the judges grinning) with an unintentionally comic sexual strut. Then she opened her mouth to sing, and a million years of experience and pain came pouring out.
Her segment starts at 2:50. [EDIT: The video (I think it may have been all of Episode 2 of KPOPSTAR) is no longer available, so I've substituted in a video of just the part where Lee Hayi (later known as Lee Hi) auditions:
END EDIT]
She was even better a couple of months later, singing deep and dark on a ballad that Yang Hyun-suk had given her to take her out of her style and out of her comfort zone.
(For Eng Sub go here to 21:53, and then here for more of the judges' comments.) [EDIT: Those links are dead; in the first ones, YG and JYP are telling her why she has to lose weight; presumably they also told her how very good she was, though this was almost 10 years ago and my memory has managed not to retain what they said on that point.]
In the competition itself, she was never quite as galvanizing, though was technically better as she showed her versatility, and none of the clumsy body motions. She was a crowd favorite and finished number 2, deserved to have won.
( But will K-pop know what to do with her? )
( Young man Hyun-suk )
Her segment starts at 2:50. [EDIT: The video (I think it may have been all of Episode 2 of KPOPSTAR) is no longer available, so I've substituted in a video of just the part where Lee Hayi (later known as Lee Hi) auditions:
END EDIT]
She was even better a couple of months later, singing deep and dark on a ballad that Yang Hyun-suk had given her to take her out of her style and out of her comfort zone.
(For Eng Sub go here to 21:53, and then here for more of the judges' comments.) [EDIT: Those links are dead; in the first ones, YG and JYP are telling her why she has to lose weight; presumably they also told her how very good she was, though this was almost 10 years ago and my memory has managed not to retain what they said on that point.]
In the competition itself, she was never quite as galvanizing, though was technically better as she showed her versatility, and none of the clumsy body motions. She was a crowd favorite and finished number 2, deserved to have won.
( But will K-pop know what to do with her? )
( Young man Hyun-suk )