kim jongmin korean born september 24 1979 is a south korean dance music singer and entertainer also well known as a member of koyote he is the male lead singer and the leader of the band in 2000 kim replaced cha seungmin korean who returned to the united states for studies and officially made his debut in koyotes third album passion it was known that he got into koyote because of his looks and popularity at the timebefore debuting as a member of koyote kim was a backup dancer for uhm junghwa lee jung hyun kim wansun ref and many other artists he was on the dance team friends for five years kim attended dobong information and industrial high school and mokwon university department of german language and literaturekim is been notable for being a popular mainstay of many korean variety shows such as kbss heroine 6 and choi hong man strong friends and formerly sbss real romance love letter as he has become a goofy nave character known for silly comments and actions he was also an assistant soccer coach on kbss fc shoot dori kim has also made appearances as a guest on mbcs king saturday driving school and happy shares company sbss love choice selection couple xman and ya shim man man and kbss star golden bell and happy together friendsin 2007 kim was a permanent member of kbss happy sunday lineup as part of 1 night 2 days in addition to promoting koyotes best album it was reported in november that kim has started his mandatory military service and replacements are being sought out for his shows during this time koyote performed as a duo as of december 18 2009 he was released from his military servicekim has won many awards the most recent of which was the best entertainer award from kbs entertainment awards in 2006as soon as he finished his mandatory military service he immediately became regular guest and permanent member on 3 different variety shows including sbss star king kbs2s sweet night and kbs2s 1 night 2 days which he was one of the members before he was enlisted this was also noted to be the first time a korean celebrity who went into the army returned to the same program he was on before his return helped create high viewership for the variety shows that he appeared in he was also on the first season of kbs2s invincible youth for a short time in the role of a mentor after the show had recently undergone a cast changehowever his return performance was not well received by viewers and he was met with harsh criticism and many people signed petitions to request for him to leave the wellreceived show 1 night 2 days despite the negative comments he kept his determination to succeedin the first quarter of 2011 after 13 years since he joined the entertainment industry he released his very first single named oppa find strength his promotional clip from the mv depicted the negative comments that he received after his return from military servicein 30 december 2013 kim jongmin won the best entertainer awards star king along with kwanghee and park jungyu also from star kinghe made his solo comeback in 3 september 2014 as he released his third single sali go dali go an electronic dance music composed by dandi the music video of his featured chun myunghoon nrg and comedian ahn youngmi his new track peaked at ranking no 8 on chinas popular music video sharing site yinyuetai