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With a voice that's warm and soothing as well as vulnerable, UMI's intimate alternative soul songs are mostly concerned with matters of the heart. The singer went viral in 2018 with tracks like "Remember Me" and "Butterfly," and she made her major-label debut with the EP Introspection in 2020. Her debut album Forest in the City arrived in 2022. UMI scored a charting hit with 2023's "Wherever U R," a collaboration with BTS member V, then released an EP, Talking to the Wind, in early 2024.

Born in Seattle in 1999, Tierra Umi Wilson was keeping a songwriting journal by the age of five. While in high school, she began regularly uploading covers, but after running into a couple copyright roadblocks, she switched to original material recorded to public-domain beats with a simple USB mike. UMI's first self-produced efforts appeared in 2016, followed by her debut EP, Interlude, in 2017. It featured a different guest producer on each track and landed on some high-profile playlists. With Wilson enrolled at USC in Los Angles, the EP was picked up by 408 Records in early 2018. Later that year, tracks including the stand-alone release "Remember Me" started racking up hundreds of thousands of streams.

UMI issued the two-track Balance in mid-2019, then signed with J.J. Abrams' Loud Robot label for the visual EP Love Language. That year, she also left school to pursue music full-time. Arriving in October 2019, Love Language included "Love Affair," another million-plus streamer. Around that time, UMI was featured on the Cautious Clay track "Saturday Morning Cartoons." Her next EP, Inspection, was delivered by Keep Cool/RCA Records in 2020. Introspection Reimagined followed in 2021. Forest in the City, her self-written debut full-length, appeared in 2022. A pair of 2023 singles, "Happy Im" and "Why Don't We Go," were later included on her 2024 EP Talking to the Wind. She also scored a hit with the stand-alone single "Wherever U R" featuring South Korea's V, which hit number five on Billboard's Digital Songs chart and 20 on the R&B chart. The low-key sequel song "Butterfly II" appeared in November 2024. ~ Marcy Donelson

Distinguished by his smoky baritone vocals, South Korean singer, actor, and fashion ambassador V is best known as a member of the globe-conquering K-pop boy band BTS. Along with his bandmates, the artist born Kim Tae-hyung topped charts and sold out arenas around the world starting in the late 2010s. He also had a trio of his own tracks on BTS albums, setting the stage for his solo career. In 2023, he made the official jump to center stage with the singles "Love Me Again" and "Rainy Days" from his debut effort, Layover.

Kim was born in 1995 in Daegu, South Korea. Musical from his childhood, he played the saxophone and sang before joining the trainee circuit for Big Hit. He was recruited to BTS and made his debut in 2013. From there, the septet went on to storied heights, becoming one of the biggest acts on the planet in a matter of years. In addition to his songwriting credits, V took the solo spotlight on BTS album cuts "Stigma" (from 2016's Wings), "Singularity" (2018's Love Yourself: Tear), and "Inner Child" (2020's Map of the Soul: 7). He also teamed with Zara Larsson for "A Brand New Day." During this period, he contributed composition, production, and vocals for a number of BTS-adjacent songs, including "Friends" with Jimin, "4 O'Clock" with RM, and "It's Definitely You" with Jin, as well as "unofficial" tracks that he directly uploaded online, like "Scenery" and "Winter Bear." He also penned "Sweet Night" for the Itaewon Class soundtrack and "Christmas Tree" for the Our Beloved Summer soundtrack.

During the early-2020s BTS hiatus, V, like the rest of his bandmates, focused on his budding solo career. He became an ambassador for a number of luxury brands, starred in a few reality shows, and released his debut solo album, 2023's Layover. The short set of stripped-down, piano-backed R&B tracks became the highest first-week sales by a K-pop solo artist in Korea's Hanteo chart history, also peaking at number two on the Billboard 200. The singles "Slow Dancing" and "Love Me Again" appeared on the Billboard 100. In early 2024, he relesed the single "FRI(END)S." That July, a series of global exhibitions dubbed "ARTSPACE: TYPE 1" was held in Seoul, Bangkok, Taipei, Vancouver, Los Angeles, and Tokyo showcasing his photo book that captured day-to-day scenes from the artist's life in 2022 and 2023. ~ Neil Z. Yeung