Kwon Bo-ah (Korean: 권보아, born November 5, 1986), known professionally as BoA, is a South Korean singer, songwriter, dancer, record producer and actress. BoA has been recognized as one of the most successful and influential Korean entertainers throughout her career, and is therefore commonly credited as the "Queen of K-pop."
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 1998 and was trained for two years. Since her debut in August 2000, BoA has released twenty studio albums, including ten in Korean, nine in Japanese, and one in English. On television, she appeared as a judge on the reality competition show K-pop Star (2011–2013), as an actress on the television drama Listen to Love (2016), as a host for the second season of Produce 101 (2017), and as a coach for the third season of The Voice of Korea (2020).
BoA's multilingual skills (she speaks Japanese and English along with native Korean and has recorded songs in Mandarin) have contributed to her commercial success throughout East Asia outside of South Korea such as China, Japan, Taiwan, as well as Singapore. With the release of her debut Japanese studio album, Listen to My Heart (2002), BoA became the first South Korean pop star to break through in Japan following the fall of barriers that had restricted the import and export of entertainment between the countries since the end of World War II. She is the only foreign artist to have three albums sell more than one million copies in Japan and is one of only three female artists to have six consecutive number-one studio albums on the Oricon charts since her debut, with the others being J-pop singers Ayumi Hamasaki and Utada Hikaru respectively.