Kim Jongdae (Korean: 김종대; born September 21, 1992), known professionally as Chen, is a singer, songwriter, actor, and member of Korean-Chinese boy band EXO, its Chinese sub-group EXO-M, and its Korean sub-group EXO-CBX. Predominantly known for being EXO's main vocalist and for recording songs for various Korean Drama original soundtracks, he joined SM Entertainment through the SM Casting System in 2011, moving from Daejeon to Seoul.
After successful original soundtrack releases and collaborations with other artists, most notably Best Luck for fellow member D.O.'s Korean Drama It's Okay, That's Love and "Everytime" for Descendants of the Sun, he finally released his first solo mini album April, and a Flower on April 1, 2019, marking his debut as a solo artist. The mini album, with the title track Beautiful goodbye, debuted at No. 3 Billboard's World Albums, making him the highest-charting solo K-pop act since November 2018 and the first solo star to chart this high in 2019. The success of his first solo venture was so high that he got to release a second mini album in October of the same year, titled Dear my dear, which ranked first on the iTunes Album chart in 36 countries around the world. Chen surpassed 1,000,000,000 (stop counting the zeroes, it's one billion) digital index on GAON Digital Chart in 2019.
In January 2020, it was revealed that Chen had gotten married to his non-celebrity girlfriend, and on April 29th, 2020, the couple welcomed their first child, a baby girl.
- 2019 - April, and a flower
- 2019 - Dear my dear
- 2022 - Last Scene
- 2014 - Best Luck (OST of It's Okay, That's Love)
- 2014 - Uprising
- 2016 - Years (collaboration with Alesso, for SM Station)
- 2016 - Lil' Something (duet with Heize, for SM Station)
- 2016 - Everytime (duet with Punch, OST of Descendants of the Sun)
- 2016 - I'm Not Okay (OST of Missing 9)
- 2016 - Beautiful Accident (duet with Suho, OST of Beautiful Accident)
- 2017 - Nosedive (with Dynamic Duo)
- 2017 - Bye Babe (duet with 10cm)
- 2018 - Cherry Blossom Love Song (OST of 100 Days My Prince)
- 2015 - EXO Next Door, as himself (supporting character)
Tropes relating to his works with EXO can be found on that page.
Chen provides examples of the following tropes:
- Affectionate Nickname: "Chenchen", "Chennie", "Chenchennie", "Kim Jongchen", "Chengzi" (orange), "dinosaur", "Kim Dajeong" (Kim-considerate), "fansign namchin" (fansign boyfriend), "High-note prince", "Kim-jong brothers elder", "Captain beagle"
- Animal Motif: A dinosaur. Some fans compared him to a cat.
- Amicable Exes: The premise of Beautiful goodbye is the singer wanting to have a beautiful goodbye, ahem, breakup, with his lover. Chen himself admits that he wouldn't actually associate the word "beautiful" with goodbye, and that he doesn't know how to make a goodbye seem "beautiful".
- Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Green for his promotions with EXO-CBX.
- Happily Married: Chen is the first of EXO member to tie the knot: he announced his plans to marry his non-celebrity girlfriend in January 2020. Their daughter was born in April of the same year.
- Mistaken for Foreigner: Not so much in South Korea in the present day due to his massive popularity domestically, but he's often assumed to be Chinese due to his Chinese stage name and the fact that he initially debuted in China as part of EXO-M.
- Stage Names: Chen.
- Shock and Awe: His designated superpower in EXO promotions.
- You Are Number 6: His designated number in EXO promotions is 21, the date of his birthday.
