BoA

This article is about the South Korean celebrity. For other uses, see Boa (disambiguation).

BoA
BoA at a DoubleUDot (W.) event
Background information
Birth name	권보아 (Kwon Boa)
Born	November 5, 1986 (1986-11-05) (age 23)
Origin	Guri, Gyeonggi-do, South Korea
Genres	Pop, dance, electropop, electronica, R&B, ballad
Occupations	Singer-songwriter, composer, dancer, model, Actress, voice actress, Record producer
Years active	2000–present
Labels	SM Entertainment Avex Trax SM Entertainment USA
Associated acts	SM Town, Verbal, M-Flo, Anyband
Website	boa.smtown.com avexnet.or.jp/boa boaamerica.com

Korean name
Hangul	권보아
Revised Romanization	Gwon Boa
McCune–Reischauer	Kwŏn Poa

Boa Kwon (Korean: 권보아, Kwon Boa, born November 5, 1986^[1]), commonly stylized and known by
her stage name BoA, which is a backronym for Beat of Angel,^[2] is a Korean singer, active in South Korea, Japan, and the United States. Born and raised in Gyeonggi-do, South Korea, BoA was discovered by SM Entertainment talent agents when she accompanied her older brother to a talent search. In 2000, after two years of training, she released ID; Peace B, her debut Korean album, under SM Entertainment. Two years later, she released her debut Japanese album, Listen to My Heart, under the Avex label. On October 14, 2008, under SM Entertainment USA, a subdivision of SM Entertainment, BoA debuted in the United States with the single "Eat You Up" and released her debut English-language album, BoA on March 17, 2009.
Influenced by hip hop and R&B singers such as Nelly and Janet Jackson, many of BoA's songs fall into those genres. As the singer feels she does not "have any talent for writing [songs]",^[3] the writing and composition of her songs are handled mostly by her staff; for this reason, she has drawn some criticism.^[4] (Though only a few of her songs are self-written, BoA began composing on her own with her Japanese debut album Listen to My Heart, in which she co-wrote and composed the song "Nothing's Gonna Change".)
BoA's multilingual skills (she speaks Japanese and conversational English along with her native Korean and has recorded songs in Mandarin Chinese)^[5] have contributed to her commercial success in South Korea and Japan and her popularity throughout East Asia. She is the only non-Japanese Asian to have two million-selling albums in Japan and is one of only two artists to have six consecutive number-one studio albums on the Oricon charts since her debut.