Roo'ra (

Hangul The Korean alphabet, known as Hangul, . Hangul may also be written as following South Korea's standard Romanization. ( ) in South Korea and Chosŏn'gŭl in North Korea, is the modern official writing system for the Korean language. The let ...

: 룰라) was a

co-ed Mixed-sex education, also known as mixed-gender education, co-education, or coeducation (abbreviated to co-ed or coed), is a system of education where males and females are educated together. Whereas single-sex education was more common up to t ...

hip hop and

dance-pop Dance-pop is a popular music subgenre that originated in the late 1970s to early 1980s. It is generally uptempo music intended for nightclubs with the intention of being danceable but also suitable for contemporary hit radio. Developing from a ...

vocal group from South Korea who was one of the country's most popular musical acts of the 1990s. The group debuted in 1994 with the hit album ''Roots of Reggae''. Their second album, ''The Angel Who Lost Wings'' (1995), sold 1 million copies in record time. Roo'ra disbanded in 2001, then reunited in 2009 to release their ninth and final album, ''A9ain''.

History

The group caused significant controversy in 1996 through the discovery of their unattributed sampling of a Japanese track called "Omatsuri Ninja" (

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

: お祭り忍者) by boy group Ninja directly in their own song "Cheon sang yu ae" (

Hanja Hanja (Hangul: ; Hanja: , ), alternatively known as Hancha, are Chinese characters () used in the writing of Korean. Hanja was used as early as the Gojoseon period, the first ever Korean kingdom. (, ) refers to Sino-Korean vocabulary, wh ...

: 天上有愛;

: 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.

Members

The original members of the group were Lee Sang-min, Go Young-wook, Kim Ji-hyun, and

Shin Jung-hwan Shin Jung-hwan (Hangul: 신정환; born 10 May 1974) is a South Korean singer and entertainer. He debuted as a singer in 1994 as a member of the K-pop group Roo'ra, and later became a frequent guest on South Korean variety shows. His career w ...

. In 1995, Shin Jung-hwan left the group to fulfill his military service requirement, and was replaced by Chae Ri-na. In 1997, Kim Ji-hyun left the group to pursue a solo career, and was replaced by temporary vocalist Mikey Romeo. Kim Ji-hyun returned for the release of the group's next album in 1999. After Roo'ra disbanded in 2001, members Lee Sang-min, Chae Ri-na, Go Young-wook, and Kim Ji-hyun reunited in 2009.

Discography

Studio albums

Awards and nominations

References

{{Authority control South Korean co-ed groups South Korean dance music groups South Korean pop music groups K-pop music groups 1994 establishments in South Korea Grand Prize Seoul Music Award recipients