The BBC Sound of 2018 nominee, who was raised in Atlanta and Seoul, not only melds elements of dance and house – she also sings in English and Korean

Listening to Yaeji’s music is like having someone whisper in your ear in the middle of a crowded club. Combining deep, rumbling subs with the softest of vocals, it’s exhilarating and soothing at the same time. The combination wasn’t intentional. “I was pretty shy about using my voice, because I don’t think of myself as an amazing singer,” the 24-year-old explains, speaking (softly) on the phone from Brooklyn. “So me singing quietly came from that.” But what began as a by-product of her own self-doubt ended up perfectly suiting the duality of her music, which takes elements of house and techno and drapes gentle melodies over the top; the kind of songs, she says, that make you want to “dance your soul out until sunrise”. She has got two EPs out – Yaeji and EP2, both released this year – and has already landed a spot on the BBC Sound of 2018 longlist.

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Yaeji, whose full name is Kathy Yaeji Lee, spent her early years in the US – before her parents, convinced she was becoming too Americanised, moved the family back to South Korea. “I was going to school in Atlanta, which was not diverse at all,” she recalls. “One day I came home and spoke completely in English, which I think was alarming for them. They were like, ‘She’s going to lose her heritage,’ so they brought me to Korea.” She’s grateful they did, and draws from her dual identities by singing in both English and Korean, but by the time she was 19 she was ready to leave. “People definitely looked like me, but there was something about it that didn’t resonate. I didn’t fit completely.”

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Now in Brooklyn, Yaeji has found a place, and an artistic community, where she finally fits. About a year ago, she started hosting weekly dinners for fellow musicians. Now she’s expanded the concept into full-blown shows, where heaped bowls of Japanese curry are dished up while she and her friends perform. “Going to shows that are all night long, you’re dancing the whole time, so it’s fuel for you to keep going,” she says.

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Some of these musician friends crop up in the video for her goofy, glitchy house track Raingurl. The video, which is lit like a Nicolas Winding Refn film, is an ode to Brooklyn’s underground rave scene. “When the sweaty walls are banging,” she sings in her usual hushed tone as she dances in a transparent raincoat, “I don’t fuck with family planning.” The song, she says, conveys “[my] awkwardness, but at the same time it’s me not caring about what other people think, and not caring about my future.” All she’s thinking about, she says, is “dancing really hard”.

EP2 is out now