Boa's Biography

SM’s idea three years ago was to begin to make a huge star who would represent Asia. Their plan was to make a star who would use the Korean music industry as a stepping stone into Asia, and then into the world, in order to spread Korea’s prestige abroad. At that time, the mainstream of the entertainment world was taken over by 13~16 year old female idol stars. The Japanese representative of an idol group, SPEED, was also composed of girls around 15 years of age. With that point given, it was obvious that it would be most favorable for our country to put out a [young] girl who would go abroad. Also, [SM] figured that �they needed at least 2~3 years in order to completely finish the casting and training of this future star’, so they concentrated first on casting.

They asked all of the candidates they met at national contests and talent shows, and even those who came to the studio to audition, if they had a younger sibling. And if they did, they went as far as to call those siblings in for auditioning. Through this never-ending effort to find their future star, the jewel that they found was BoA. At that time, BoA’s older brother had come to the studio for an audition. The answer to the question "Do you have a younger sibling" was the one and only 5th grader named BoA. At the time, she was 11 years old. BoA has trained ever since that young age for this day. The fact that she sang at the audition that she had through her older brother was what guided her into becoming a future star. The dancing and singing that the young elementary student did at the audition showed plenty of potential to be a star.

BoA’s talent and passion, and her skills, although not yet fine tuned, were extraordinary in spite of her young age. The company did however worry about how well she could do at such a young age, but they couldn’t just let this opportunity pass them by. As soon as SM found BoA, they quickly met with her parents to persuade them into permitting her training. BoA also showed her parents her strong interest in making her dream of becoming a singer come true. But in the beginning, her parents strongly opposed. Her brothers understood why their parents opposed this decision so strongly; BoA was bringing home very high grades, and they just wanted her to keep studying, not become a singer. But the company who had already found BoA’s talents