She finished in first place as a contestant in the South Korean singing competition SBS K-pop Star 4.
Her breakthrough performance of "Where You Need To Be" reached 4 million views on South Korea's leading video-sharing site, Naver TV Cast, in the shortest amount of time in K-pop Star history.
[4][5] Her mother would play classical music when she was a child, and she realized that she wanted to be a singer in her high school years.
[6] She studied jazz at Berklee College of Music, but had to drop out due to financial difficulties burdening her family.
[11] Kim's primary influences include jazz, soul, funk, and R&B musicians such as Aaliyah, Frank Sinatra, Lalah Hathaway, Nao, D'Angelo, Erykah Badu, H.E.R., Ella Fitzgerald, Chet Baker, and Frank Ocean, most of which she listened to as a student at Berklee.