The 33-year-old was signed by South Korea’s SM Entertainment when she was in her teens as a trainee, learning singing, dancing and performing in anticipation of launching a career as a K-pop artiste.
Instead of singing, she initially became a songwriter and producer who worked with popular groups such as Aespa, Twice, Red Velvet, Nmixx and others to capture the authentic sound of the genre.
KPop Demon Hunters debuted on Netflix on Jun 20, quickly garnering global praise from critics and audiences.
The story follows a trio of demon hunters that perform K-pop music to both impress fans and combat demons.
A sing-along version of KPop Demon Hunters topped the North American box office over the weekend, in what appears to be a historic first for streaming giant Netflix.
The movie brought in an estimated US$18 million from US and Canada box offices, according to IMDb’s Box Office Mojo, surpassing the US$15.6 million for horror movie Weapons.
KPop Demon Hunters centres on Rumi, the lead singer of the group, with musical vocals provided by Ejae and a speaking voice from Arden Cho.
Rumi struggles with her identity and fears that her two best friends, Mira, voiced by May Hong, and Zoey, voiced by Ji-young Yoo, won’t accept her for who she really is.
The film was produced by Sony Pictures Animation.
While the fictional K-pop girl group called Huntr/x has achieved enormous real-life success, Cho has been surprised by some of the audience reactions to the movie’s music.
“Someone was saying that Huntr/x voices were AI (artificial intelligence) because it’s so good,” Cho said.
“It’s so good that they were like, ‘Oh, those singers must be AI.’ No, we’re real. We’re here,’ she added.
The movie’s soundtrack has dominated the charts this summer, boasting over 3 billion global streams to date, with breakout hit Golden hitting #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, Netflix reports.
The action-packed movie is also the highest-charting soundtrack of 2025 so far with songs How It’s Done, What It Sounds Like and Free also ranking with Golden in the top 10 most streamed songs for the week ending on Aug 14, according to Luminate.
To create Golden, which is getting Grammy Award buzz, Ejae had to hit some high notes.
“Whenever Rumi sings, you know, they (the directors) really wanted her to belt, show off her vocals because that’s her role, right?” Ejae said.
“So, yes, I put as many high notes as possible. And like, I honestly found my range while singing Golden,” she added.
