Kathy Yaeji Lee makes music that sounds exactly like what it is: house music made by someone who grew up between cultures and found a way to live inside that gap.
She was born in New York, raised in Seoul, then Atlanta, then back in New York. Her parents are Korean. She sings in both languages, often within the same song. That's not a stylistic choice — it's just how she thinks.
The early EPs on Godmode from 2017 and 2018 are where she made her name. "Raingurl" became the track people played on repeat — a shuffling four-four groove with her voice floating over the top, speaking in a near-whisper about rain and presence. It sounds nothing like what most people associate with club music, but it absolutely works on a dancefloor.
With A Hammer
WHAT WE DREW 우리가 그려왔던 came out in 2020 via XL Recordings. A mixtape in form but an album in ambition. The bilingual structure is more deliberate there — some songs in Korean, some in English, some in both. "MONEY CAT" uses a playful structure that hides how technically precise the production is underneath.
With A Hammer (2023) was her biggest statement. She moved away from pure house music into something harder and more physical. "With A Hammer" the title track has a brutalist quality — drums that hit like machinery, vocals processed in real time. "Submerge FM" from that record is the best thing she's made: it moves through three different tempos without losing the emotional thread.
There's an honesty to Yaeji's music that goes beyond the bilingual thing. She's interested in what it feels like to be in your body in a public space — at a party, on the street, in a room with other people. The club setting is a vehicle for something more internal.
Her live sets have evolved significantly since the early DJ sets — the 2023 tour behind With A Hammer was widely reviewed as a step-change. More theatrical, more physical.
The trajectory from "Raingurl" to "With A Hammer" is worth tracing from beginning to end.
