Korean-American Artist / HUNTR/X / Republic Records
REIAMI
Seoul-born. Maryland-raised. The girl who blended Sailor Moon with hip-hop - and accidentally conquered the planet.
Seoul-born. Maryland-raised. The girl who blended Sailor Moon with hip-hop - and accidentally conquered the planet.
There is a version of REI AMI's story where she stays at the packaging company, never tells her parents what she's doing in Los Angeles, and the world never hears the name. That version doesn't exist. Instead: a Grammy, an Oscar, a Billboard Hot 100 #1, and a Netflix record that nobody saw coming.
Her real name is Sarah Yeeun Lee. She was born in Seoul, moved to Germantown, Maryland at age six, and grew up in a Korean-American household where secular music was effectively banned. Her parents paid for piano and guitar lessons - but only so she could perform at church. The contradiction in that setup says everything about where REI AMI would eventually land: somewhere between the sacred and the profane, the polished and the raw, the pop and the punk.
The name itself is a clue. REI AMI fuses two Sailor Moon characters - Rei Hino (Sailor Mars, hot-headed, blunt) and Ami Mizuno (Sailor Mercury, sweet, sensitive). She chose it deliberately, not as a cute anime reference but as an architectural statement: she contains both. The rage and the tears. The mosh pit energy and the crying-in-the-car moment. "I want you to go from twerking, being a bad bitch to knowing it's okay to be sad," she's said. That line reads like a joke until you realize it is her entire artistic thesis.
After graduating from the University of Maryland in 2018, she relocated to Los Angeles and worked a full-time job at a custom packaging company - specifically the Sephora division - while secretly making music. "Snowcone," her debut single, cost under $100 to film. It went viral on TikTok. Then Sub Urban's "Freak" (2020) pulled 292 million YouTube views and changed the calculation entirely. She signed with Visionary Music Group. She made a mixtape. She made an EP. And then Netflix called.
KPop Demon Hunters, a 2025 animated film, needed someone to voice Zoey - one third of the fictional K-pop girl group HUNTR/X. REI AMI got the part. The other two thirds were EJAE and Audrey Nuna. They recorded all their vocals separately. They didn't meet in person until the film dropped in June 2025. The song "Golden" came with it - and "Golden" promptly became the first K-pop track to reach #1 on the US Billboard Hot 100, the first to win a Grammy, and the first to win an Academy Award for Best Original Song. KPop Demon Hunters became Netflix's most-watched film of all time.
When conspiracy theories spread online suggesting HUNTR/X must be AI-generated - because surely three artists couldn't record independently and sound that cohesive - REI AMI responded with the kind of sentence that gets quoted in every profile written about her since: "EJAE, AUDREY NUNA AND I ARE NOT AI - ARE U BITCHES DUMB?" The all-caps thing wasn't an accident. Neither was the question mark.
Why would you want to make another song that sounds like 10 other songs out there? No, just f***ing be you. - REI AMI
The setup is almost too perfect for a superhero origin story. A Korean-American girl grows up in the suburbs of Maryland where secular music is banned in the household - but her parents fund piano and guitar lessons for church performances. She escapes into anime, theater (The Little Mermaid, In the Heights), and a contraband discovery: Kendrick Lamar's Section.80 becomes her hip-hop awakening. She quietly absorbs Destiny's Child, Missy Elliott, Beyonce, Mariah Carey, Lauryn Hill. She builds a private vocabulary.
Then college. Then LA. Then the secret job. Then the $100 music video. There's a direct line from "performing hymns at church because it was the only music allowed" to writing a song called "reivelations" that opens with your spiritual upbringing and ends with the mantra: "You may be a dumb bitch, but you are not a weak bitch." That line didn't come from nowhere. It came from years of being told what you can and can't be.
The debut mixtape FOIL (2021) named itself after a literary term - a foil character exists to highlight the traits of the main character. REI AMI used that framing as permission to be every genre at once. You can hear it in the track sequencing: aggression pivoting to vulnerability mid-song, rap verses landing in the same body as melodic hooks, beats switching without warning. Aminé and Lolo Zouaï showed up as collaborators. Aminé, asked to pick any song from an unreleased playlist, chose the slowest, most reflective one - a choice that still makes her cry.
2023's Shhh EP leaned harder into the industrial and deconstructed - five tracks of rage and its underlying causes: "random acts of violence," "body bag," "yellow tape." Not background music. Not radio bait. The kind of record you make when you have something to prove and don't care who's listening.
REI + AMI = Sailor Mars + Sailor Mercury from Sailor Moon. Hot-headed bad bitch meets sweet and sensitive. She planned the duality from day one.
Secular music was prohibited at home. Her parents paid for music lessons anyway - for church. She used them to become something else entirely.
After university, she worked at a Sephora packaging company in LA while secretly building a music career. Nobody at the office knew.
She wrote "damn." entirely in one hour while building a blanket fort. "Therapeutic and healing." The best songs don't always need a studio session.
When fans speculated HUNTR/X was AI-generated: "EJAE, AUDREY NUNA AND I ARE NOT AI - ARE U BITCHES DUMB?" The capitals were intentional.
On a KPop Demon Hunters sequel: "I'm waiting for the call, just like you! You're gonna find out when I do." She means it. The call hasn't come yet.
The word "fictional" is doing a lot of work in the sentence "HUNTR/X is a fictional K-pop group." Because what "Golden" did in 2025 was the opposite of fictional. The track hit #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 on July 4, 2025 - a date that felt deliberate even though it wasn't. It sat at #1 for five non-consecutive weeks. On the Billboard Global 200, it ran for 18 non-consecutive weeks at the top. In the UK, it became the longest-running #1 ever by a fictional act - 10 weeks. It went #1 in 30+ countries simultaneously. It received 5x Platinum certification in the US and Australia, 8x in Canada.
The track runs 3 minutes and 14 seconds in G major with a three-octave vocal range across the three vocalists. Producer Teddy Park worked alongside Ido and Ian Eisendrath. A David Guetta remix arrived. A symphonic "Glowin' Version" dropped in January 2026. Every format, every remix, every version charted. The song refused to stop.
At the 68th Grammy Awards in February 2026, "Golden" won Best Song Written for Visual Media. First K-pop song to win a Grammy. At the 98th Academy Awards in March 2026, it won Best Original Song. First K-pop song to win an Oscar. REI AMI performed it live at the ceremony. The Golden Globe had already arrived by that point. So had the Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Song, the MAMA Award for Best OST, and iHeartRadio's K-Pop Song of the Year.
The three HUNTR/X members - REI AMI as Zoey, EJAE as Rumi, Audrey Nuna as Mira - recorded every single vocal separately. They didn't meet until the film's release. That they sound like a group who have been practicing together for years is a testament to engineering, arranging, and three artists who understood the assignment without needing to be in the same room.
Sarah Yeeun Lee enters the world in Seoul, South Korea. The family will relocate to Germantown, Maryland six years later.
Packs up Maryland and moves to Los Angeles. Takes a day job at a custom packaging company. Starts making music in secret.
First single filmed for under $100 goes viral on TikTok. Signs with Visionary Music Group. The packaging company has no idea.
Featured on Sub Urban's "Freak," which generates 3.5 million TikTok videos and 292 million YouTube views. Lands on Ones to Watch's Top 21 Artists list. The word is out.
10 tracks. Aminé. Lolo Zouaï. The literary foil concept as permission to genre-hop freely. Tour support for Tinashe. The sound hardens.
Diagnosed with bipolar disorder after years of misdiagnosis. Starts speaking openly about mental health, particularly within the Korean-American community where stigma runs deep.
Five tracks of industrial hip-hop and rage. "random acts of violence." "body bag." "yellow tape." Her most confrontational work yet.
Cast as Zoey in Netflix's KPop Demon Hunters. "Golden" hits #1 in 30+ countries. Netflix's most-watched film. Republic Records deal. SNL. Tonight Show. Macy's Parade.
"Golden" wins Best Song Written for Visual Media at the 68th Grammys and Best Original Song at the 98th Oscars - both firsts for K-pop. 34 million monthly Spotify listeners. Solo album cooking in Malibu. Whatever comes next, she's making it louder.
I want you to go from twerking, being a bad bitch to knowing it's okay to be sad. - REI AMI, on her artistic mission
Hip-hop, R&B, alternative pop, and pop-punk aggression sharing the same track. Mid-song beat switches that drop you into a completely different sonic universe. Assertive rap verses coexisting with melodic hooks. Industrial production. Deconstructed club elements. Described by herself as "very not safe for work" and "very aggressive and in your face."
Her creative signature: the transition that shouldn't work but does. The moment where the song becomes two songs and neither one feels incomplete.
Electropop and K-pop architecture. Three-octave vocal range shared across EJAE, Audrey Nuna, and REI AMI. Produced by Teddy Park (24), Ido, and Ian Eisendrath. The result is polished to within an inch of its life without sounding polished. "It took a lot of time, and thought, and blood, sweat and tears to really build these songs vocally."
Deliberate contrast with her solo work - and she knows it. The solo album in progress is specifically designed to be the opposite of mainstream K-pop.
Kendrick Lamar's Section.80 (the hip-hop awakening). Destiny's Child. Missy Elliott. Beyonce. Mariah Carey. Lauryn Hill. K-pop acts absorbed growing up. Theater training - she performed in The Little Mermaid and In the Heights before any of this.
Related artists: Ashnikko, beabadoobee, 88rising. Genre-defying as a feature, not a bug.
The mixtape FOIL was deliberately named after a literary device - a foil character highlights the main character's traits. The implication: every genre choice REI AMI makes exists to clarify who she is, not to pick a lane and stay in it.
"Why would you want to make another song that sounds like 10 other songs out there? No, just f***ing be you." That's not a slogan. That's a production method.
In 2022, REI AMI was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. She had spent years being misdiagnosed with depression during and after college. The diagnosis itself was clarifying - it named something she'd been managing without knowing what to call it. Rather than keep it private, she went public.
In a Korean-American community where mental health stigma is often severe, talking openly about a bipolar diagnosis is not a small thing. It's a calculated act of normalizing. She speaks to it in interviews, in her music, in the way she frames vulnerability as something compatible with aggression rather than opposed to it.
The same artist who wants fans to mosh pit while chanting her name is also the one making space for people who recognize themselves in the "okay to be sad" half of her mission statement. That's not a contradiction in REI AMI's world. It's the whole point.
On authenticity in 2026, after a year of history-making chart runs, awards ceremonies, and the kind of scrutiny that comes with being first: she still says the quieter part the loudest. Thinking about what others have to say? "Completely out, bye-bye haters."
I have an emotional attachment to [the name REI AMI]. There's value in that and also it just represents duality.
You may be a dumb bitch, but you are not a weak bitch.
I went to the studio, I got shitfaced, and he started making a beat.
EJAE, AUDREY NUNA AND I ARE NOT AI - ARE U BITCHES DUMB?
It took a lot of time, and thought, and blood, sweat and tears to really build these songs vocally.
I'm waiting for the call, just like you! You're gonna find out when I do.
Her debut single "Snowcone" cost less than $100 to film. That $100 video launched her career via TikTok.
She performed in The Little Mermaid and In the Heights as a kid. Theater training makes a lot of sense given what she did with animated vocal performance later.
"Golden" runs exactly 3 minutes 14 seconds in G major. It required a three-octave vocal range distributed across three separate recording sessions.
Aminé was sent a full playlist of unreleased songs and asked to pick one. He chose the slowest, most reflective track. "This song always makes me cry," she said about the result.
She and her HUNTR/X bandmates recorded all vocals separately and didn't meet in person until the film's premiere. The vocal chemistry you hear was engineered, not rehearsed.
Before music fame, she worked at a Sephora custom packaging company. She kept the music career completely secret from her coworkers.
Co-vocalist in HUNTR/X. Voiced Rumi in KPop Demon Hunters. Recorded separately from Rei and Audrey - they met at the premiere.
Third voice in HUNTR/X. Voiced Mira. Same situation - separate recording sessions, met for the first time when the film dropped.
The feature that put her on the map. 292 million YouTube views. 3.5 million TikTok videos generated. Changed everything.
Sent her entire unreleased playlist. He picked the slowest, most reflective song. The result still makes her cry.
Collaboration started 2019, finished when Lolo texted a Dropbox link with her verse in November 2020. No rush. Worth it.
Lead producer on "Golden" alongside Ido and Ian Eisendrath. The architect of the sound that rewrote K-pop history.
Supported Tinashe on tour in 2021. Live performance experience building toward the SNL and Tonight Show appearances years later.
Signed in 2025 following the KPop Demon Hunters breakout. The institutional backing to match the scale of what "Golden" became.