Biography
Roo'ra (Hangul: 룰라) was a co-ed hip hop and dance group from South Korea that debuted in 1994 with the album, Roots of Reggae. Many of the group's albums were the top selling of their time in South Korea, with their debut album selling over 280,000 copies. They hold the record of first artist to sell one million albums in the dance and hip-hop genre in South Korea. The group was also an important stepping stone for many Korean pop stars and songwriters.
The group caused significant controversy in 1996 through the discovery of their unattributed sampling of a Japanese track called "Omatsuri Ninja" (Japanese: お祭り忍者) by Ninja directly in their own song "Cheon sang yu ae" (Hanja:天上有愛; Hangul: 천상유애).
This incident raised a heated debate " about the nature of "Korean-ness in popular music" and pushed this pointy but long dormant issue to the forefront in the mid-1990s. The group nearly split in 1996 due to the controversy, but eventually only came to an end in 2001 after the release of a final album.
In 2008, the group was reunited with Lee Sang-min, Go Young-wook, Kim Ji-hyun, and Chae Ri-na to work on an upcoming album. In the middle of the project, Shin Jung-hwan and Go Young-wook formed a temporary duo group, "Roo'ra Man", and released a single, "The Reason Why I Hate Winter" in December 2008. The single was produced by Lee Sang-min. Roo'ra's last album, Again, was released in July 2009 with "Going Going" as the first single.
The original members of the group were Lee Sang-min, Go Young-wook, Kim Ji-hyun, and Shin Jung-hwan. In 1995, Jung-hwan left to fulfill his military service requirement, and was replaced by Chae Ri-na. Jung-hwan appeared with the group on a couple of occasions in 1995, and again in 1997, though was not billed as a member, nor did he appear on their albums after 1994. In 1996, Kim Ji-hyun left to pursue a solo career, and was replaced by Michael Romeo. The group disbanded in 1997; then re-formed in 1999, with Ji-hyun returning to join Sang-min, Young-wook, and Ri-na in the configuration that remained through the group's final dissolution in 2001.
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