Lee Seung-chul (aka Rui, born on December 5th, 1966) is an award-winning K-Pop singer whose work encompasses four decades of music. Born in South Korea in 1955, Lee became famous for being the frontman of the rock band Boohwal, which he eventually quit to pursue a solo career in 1989. Known in his home country as the ‘Emperor of Live Music,’ he has had several hits over the years and also his fair share of run-ins with the law due to drug abuse. His first album Don’t Say Good-Bye was released in 1989 and spawned a hit with the title track, which topped the South Korean music charts. His sophomore effort, Lee Seung-chul: Part 2, featured the song “Girls’ Generation,” which would be extensively covered by many K-Pop bands. After releasing a string of albums that received little to no recognition from the press or audiences, he made a comeback with 2005’s The Livelong Day, which earned him the Korean Music Awards for Best Male Singer. In 2013, his 11th studio album, My Love, made it to the top of the Billboard K-Pop charts. In the following years, Lee Seung Chul participated as a judge in the reality music show Superstar K and contributed to the soundtrack of the TV series Misty (2018) and the feature film Moonlight Sculptor (2020) before dropping the single “We Were” in 2021, celebrating his 35 years of music career.
