Cai Xukun (born August 2, 1998), better known by the mononym Kun (stylized as KUN), is a Chinese singer-songwriter, dancer and rapper.
Kun was born on August 2, 1998, in Wenzhou, Zhejiang but partially spent his childhood in Huaihua, Hunan with his grandparents, and later grew up in Shenzhen, Guangdong.
During his time in elementary school, he was chosen to be the principal's assistant and student union's president, and partook in various essay writing competitions.
Kun was also selected as a candidate for TFBoys, but decided to focus on his schooling as his parents thought that he was too young to join the entertainment industry.
After graduating from elementary school, he moved to Shenzhen to complete middle school at ShenZhen Nashan Foreign Language School (formerly known as ShenZhen Nanshan Second Experimental High School).
Around the age of 16, he studied at Grace Brethren High School in Simi Valley, California, United States.
2012
In April 2012, Kun participated in Hunan TV's variety show Up Young! and ended up in the national top 200, which allowed him to enter the stage.
In August of that year, Kun began his acting career, playing the role of Du Yu Feng's teenage version (portrayed by Lee Joon-hyuk) in Half a Fairytale.
After that he also played the role of Xixi in Hunan TV's television series "女刑警李春春 (Police Woman Li ChunChun)".
2014
In 2014, he played the teenage version of Huo Ke (portrayed by He Jiong) in Lock Me Up, Tie Him Down.
2015
In 2015, Kun returned from the U.S. to participate in South-Korean based reality show Super Idol.
The show was produced by Anhui TV, in partnership with South-Korean broadcast network MBC.
During the two seasons of the show, Kun experienced constant pressure and fierce competition from other participants, receiving intensive idol training.
After a period of about two years on the show, Kun's performance skills saw an unprecedented improvement, earning him a spot in the Top 3.
Upon the end of Season 2, Kun returned to China, where he debuted as a member of Chinese boy group SWIN under Yihai Entertainment Company.
As the group had already accumulated a sizable fan base at the time, the debut was highly anticipated by both the members and their fans.
However, due to Yihai's mismanagement, the group rarely had performance opportunities and public appearances, which resulted in a dwindling fan base and popularity.
2016
He debuted as a member of SWIN and its sub-unit SWIN-S on October 18, 2016, after participating in the first and second seasons of the Chinese reality show Super Idol.
2017
In the beginning of 2017, Kun filed a lawsuit against Yihai Entertainment Company to terminate his contract.
After a period of dormancy from the entertainment industry, Kun decided to join Season 1 of reality survival show Idol Producer as an independent trainee at the end of 2017.
Kun performed his self-written and self-composed song "I Wanna Get Love" in the first episode.
Despite some controversy, Kun attracted a large fanbase.
He quickly rose to fame and became a hot topic for discussion on the survival show.
In addition to receiving considerably high votes after each evaluation performance in the show, Kun also earned rank no. 1 multiple times and maintained a high ranking throughout the entire program.
He received a total of 47,640,887 votes in the final evaluation, earning him the center position in the final line-up.
Soon after the end of Idol Producer, I Won't Get Bullied by Girls, a web-drama starring Kun filmed in 2017, was released.
Kun took on his first lead role as Ye Lin, the love interest of Ren Xiaoqin (portrayed by Lu Yangyang).
The show is a teen comedy series that features a distinctive wardrobe and draws heavy influence from Japanese manga as a means to achieve comic relief.
Owing up to Kun's popularity at the time of the release, the series' viewership reached and set new records almost daily.
2018
After leaving the group and its company Yihai Entertainment, he participated in iQiyi's reality survival show Idol Producer, finishing first and debuting as the leader/center of temporary Chinese boy group Nine Percent, on April 6, 2018.
At the time of its release in 2018, "Wait Wait Wait" debuted at number 1 on QQ Music's New Song list and Popular Music list for 10 weeks and won the title of Asia's hottest song for 4 consecutive weeks.
On April 6, 2018, Kun officially debuted as the leader and center of temporary Chinese boy group Nine Percent.
2019
On January 10, 2019, Kun was officially named China-Jamaica Goodwill Ambassador and China-Jamaica Outstanding Youth Leader in Shanghai, China.
In February, Kun announced his first solo tour, "Kun ONE North America/U.K. Tour 2019", coming in early April 2019.
After wrapping up the tour on July 26, Kun released his second EP titled "Young", which consists of two songs, "Young" and "Blindfolded".
Upon release, this EP did exceptionally well in Chinese music charts, selling 5.67 million copies in a week, for which he was dubbed "King of Digital Singles".
2020
He was a cast member of variety show Keep Running from 2020 to 2022.
Most of Kun's solo works are original, including "Wait Wait Wait" and his first EP "1".
The EP was a commercial success with every song topping Chinese music charts.
"Pull Up", the first track, broke 10 records and peaked at number 1 on four of QQ Music's charts as well as ranking first on Billboard China's V Chart for 8 consecutive weeks.
