Key

SHINee's self-described master key: vocalist, rapper and dancer in one. A fashion obsessive with killer variety-show instincts, he reads the room on and off stage.

Born Kim Ki-bum in 1991 in Daegu, he's an only child raised mostly by his grandmother while both parents worked, and he still tears up whenever she comes up. As a kid he competed as a water-skier and actually won medals. In 2006 he beat 8,000-to-1 odds in a nationwide SM Entertainment audition, and the story goes that Lee Soo-man watched his tape and said, basically, that one's ours. For three years as a trainee he rode the train between Seoul and Daegu every weekend, and he's admitted he cried on a lot of those rides.

SHINee debuted in 2008 with Replay. The stage name Key comes from the idea of a master key that unlocks vocals, rap and dance alike. He was already rapping by the Ring Ding Dong era, and his near-perfect pitch became a meme when, hosting a music show, he spoiled other artists' new melodies note for note. His SM crossover list is stacked: rap features on Girls' Generation's Boys & Girls and EXO's Two Moons, plus the 2014 unit Toheart with INFINITE's Woohyun.

Fans have given him a small dictionary of nicknames. He's Keymera because he somehow finds the crane camera every single time, starting with his debut stage. He and Minho, born the same year, had a big blowup as trainees and stayed awkward into debut; now they bicker like an old married couple. He mothers maknae Taemin so much he's called Key Umma, and with Jonghyun he formed the group's official crybaby duo. The tiny scar in his right eyebrow came from a broken flowerpot when he was little, and since his face is almost perfectly symmetrical, fans use it to spot mirrored photos.

He speaks natural English and Japanese and solid Chinese, and his livestreams often hop between four languages. He calls his fans lil freaks, which makes him the head freak. He's also the social glue of the 1991-born idol friend group known as the 91 line. Off stage he's surprisingly shy: he'll crack jokes in front of tens of thousands, then stare at the ceiling when a handful of fans meet his eyes. It's why his dad's reaction to his singing dream, that a kid this reserved couldn't possibly have the showbiz gene, still gets quoted.

Fashion is the first word anyone uses for him. He's a Paris Fashion Week regular, and he helped style SHINee's 2015 View outfits: the old-school skater look split fans at first, then blew up as a trend a few weeks later. His SM Halloween costumes are legendary. After he went full Ronald McDonald in 2015, McDonald's sent him 91 free-meal vouchers, which he donated. He followed up with Marge Simpson in 2017 and a Voldemort that won best dressed in 2018. His two toy poodles are named Comme and Garçon, after the fashion label.

On TV he became the ace of tvN's Amazing Saturday from 2018, able to transcribe lyrics from pure sound on first listen, which earned him the title human Amazing Saturday. When he enlisted in a military band in March 2019, his close friend Taeyeon came to visit, and he went straight back to the show after his discharge in October 2020. From 2021 he was a regular on MBC's I Live Alone, growing green onions on his terrace and cooking for friends.

His solo career finally kicked off ten years after debut with FACE in 2018. BAD LOVE got him his first solo music-show win in 2021, Gasoline and Killer followed, and Pleasure Shop moved over 110,000 copies in its first week in 2024. He even acts under the name SHINee Key instead of his real one, and his thick Gyeongsang accent in the drama Drinking Solo won real praise. In December 2025 it emerged that a person who had treated him at home, whom he believed to be a doctor, was unlicensed. He said he hadn't known, apologized, and stepped away from his scheduled work and the shows he was on.