In this article, we’re going to see how Wonder Girls’ rapper, Yubin transformed herself from her debut until the present day!
2007
Kim Yu-bin (김유빈) was born in Gwangju, South Korea, on October 4th, 1988. Before debuting as a member of Wonder Girls, Yubin was a member of a girl group under Good Entertainment and was ready to debut as a member of the group Five Girls together with SECRET’s Hyosung, G.NA, After School’s UEE, and SPICA’s Yang Jiwon, but they disbanded due to the agency’s financial troubles forcing the members to leave the agency and move to another one. In 2007, Yubin made her debut as a member of the group Wonder Girls, where she took the position of a rapper and replaced Hyuna, who had to leave due to health-related issues. Although she was introduced as a rapper, Wonder Girls’ Yubin was also the main vocal of the group and had singing lines in “This Time” and “Wishing on a Star.” Wonder Girls debuted with a song titled “Tell Me” in 2007.
After her debut appearance, Wonder Girls’ Yubin also became a model for 2PM’s music video titled “10 Out Of 10” and SHINHWA’s music video titled “Once in a Life Time.” Not only she appeared as a model in the music video, but Wonder Girls’ Yubin was also already featured in several artist’s singles, such as Kim Bum-soo, Lee Min-woo, SHINHWA’s Andy Lee and Chun G.
2008
In 2008, Wonder Girls’ Yubin made an appearance in MBC’s sitcom, Here He Comes only as a short cameo. This was her first appearance on the small screen and her first solo project, outside the projects with her group, after which she got to star in many television dramas.
One year after their debut, Wonder Girls released a song for their comeback in 2009 titled “So Hot” and they accompanied Park Jin-young as guests on his concert tour in South Korea and the United States. The song itself was released on May 22nd, 2008, but Wonder Girls’ Yubin had a vocal cord injury and she had to lip-sync during their performance on MBC’s Show! Music Core.
The same year, Wonder Girls took a short break and had another comeback in early fall by releasing a music video of “Nobody” on December 14th, 2008. The song became very famous both domestically and internationally. Wonder Girls became known as one of the South Korean girl groups with very high popularity at the time, and as proof of their popularity, they even received three awards, namely Song of the Year, Best Music Video, and Best Female Group.
At the end of 2008, Wonder Girls had a special contract and signed with the Creative Artists Agency (CAA) based in Los Angeles, California. They also earned ₩12 billion ($9 million US) as a group which put them in the category of successful South Korean girl groups at that time.
2009
In the summer of 2009, Wonder Girls had their schedule with Wonder Girls World Tour which started in Bangkok, Thailand and continued with Park Jin-young’s concert tour in the United States. Along with the tour, Wonder Girls filmed a reality show titled Welcome to Wonderland that was documented in Seoul and Busan around March 2009 and aired on Mnet.
Wonder Girls released a music video cover of a girl group, Fin.KL’s single titled “Now” along with their concert tour schedule and they also released an English version of their previous singles, “Nobody” and “Tell Me” in the summer of 2009, before they started a schedule with the Jonas Brother World Tour 2009.
2010
2010 was a difficult year for Wonder Girls as their member, Sunmi, had to leave the group to pursue her academic career and Wonder Girls’ Hyerim replaced her for the next promoting schedules. This year, Wonder Girls had prepared to release six tracks of English versions of their previous singles and announced a show of The Wonder World Tour on April 5th, 2010, around the United States and Canada.
On May 15th, 2010, Wonder Girls released their new EP titled 2 Different Tears and the title song was recorded in 3 different languages, namely Chinese, Korean, and English. This song was also performed as Wonder Girls’ stage comeback and brought them their 1st win on M! Countdown.
2011
In 2011, Wonder Girls announced that they would be releasing another English album produced by Claude Kelly, a famous songwriter from Hollywood that has been nominated at the Grammy awards and the songs will be released by a label in America.
This was a very busy year for Wonder girls as their schedule was packed. They were scheduled to attend the Special Olympics closing ceremony in Athens, Greece on June 30th, 2011, and appear on Billboard.com’s Mashup Monday program on August 5th, 2011. The girl group that consists of 5 members performed a self-arranged cover of B.o.B and Bruno Mars’ song, “Nothing On You.”
On November 6th, 2011, Wonder Girls released a music video for “Be My Baby” which was considered as the leading track of their second studio album titled Wonder World.
In this album, Wonder Girls’ Yubin wrote three tracks: “Girls Girls,” “Me, In,” and “Sweet Dreams.”
2012
After promotions of their new single ended, Wonder Girls returned to America with several activities and filmed The Wonder Girls and released a new English song titled “The DJ is Mine” with American girl group, School Gyrls, which was released on January 12th, 2012.
In the middle of the year, Wonder Girls released another music video titled “The DJ is Mine” which features Hollywood singer, AKON. The music video was uploaded on July 9th, 2012, for their English album debut along with the 12-track album.
On June 3rd, 2012, Wonder Girls released their 3rd EP with the title Wonder Party comprising of six tracks and the lead single, “Like This.” The song was also a big hit and was released in the United States in a deluxe edition. While promoting the song “Like This,” Wonder Girls had still been drawing the attention of their fans with a cute and funky concept.
2013
This year, Wonder Girls’ career as a girl group was shaken a little bit since their members were announced of going their separate ways. Wonder Girls’ Sunye announced that she will be getting married in early 2013 and JYP Entertainment decided the group would go on a hiatus for the time being. Wonder Girls’ last performance was held on February 5th, 2013, at the Winter Special Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea.
Following Sunye’s departure, Wonder Girls’ Sohee announced that she left JYP Entertainment and signed under KeyEast Entertainment to focus on her solo career in acting. While the two members of Wonder Girls were leaving, the activities and promotions in the United States had expired. Due to the group’s inactivity, another piece of news was announced in August 2013, namely that the former member of Wonder Girls, Sunmi, will debut as a solo artist with an EP titled Full Moon.
2014
Wonder Girls hadn’t made a comeback or a promotion as a group for a year when the news about Wonder Girls’ Yeeun debuting as a solo artist under the stage name Ha:tfelt surfaced on July 31st, 2014, and surprised their fans causing a nostalgic feeling and a wish for them to make a comeback as group again. Then what about Wonder Girls’ Yubin’s career?
