General · EdgepediaSeptember 17, 20265 min read

AleXa (알렉사)

AleXa (알렉사; born Alexandra Christine Schneiderman in 1996) is an American K-pop singer and rapper based in South Korea, known to fans also as Alex Christine and, more recently, by her Korean name Kim Seri (김세리). She debuted in October 2019 with the single "Bomb" and won the first and only season of NBC's American Song Contest in 2022 with her song "Wonderland", representing her home state of Oklahoma.¹^•²

Key fact	Detail
Born	1996 in Tulsa, Oklahoma, to a Russian-American father and a South Korean mother¹
Debut	"Bomb", October 2019, first artist of ZB Label, the subsidiary of music-video company ZanyBros; reached the top ten of Billboard's World Digital Song Sales chart¹^•³
EPs	Do or Die (April 2020) and Decoherence (October 2020), the latter reaching number 67 on the Korean Gaon Album chart¹
American Song Contest	Won the 2022 inaugural season with "Wonderland", scoring 710 points including 656 televote points, a 200-point lead over runner-up Riker Lynch⁴
First full-length album	Sugarcoat, released March 7, 2025⁵
Melodifestivalen 2026	Competed with "Tongue Tied" in the fifth heat in Sundsvall; placed fifth in the heat with 343 points and received 1,396,363 votes in the final qualification round⁶
Other names	Alex Christine, Alexaundra Christine Schneiderman, Kim Seri¹

Early life and path to K-pop

AleXa grew up in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where she took dance lessons, sang, and joined her high school show choir; after high school she attended Tulsa Community College and was active in theater productions while posting covers of K-pop songs online.¹ She discovered K-pop in 2008 at age 11, beginning with the boy band Super Junior and then the group SHINee, and has said she began dreaming of becoming a K-pop singer from that point.⁷

Her family background shaped an identity she has described as split between cultures. Her mother is Korean but was adopted at a young age by American parents and had little contact with her heritage, so AleXa says she did not feel "Korean" growing up, while in Korea she initially felt culturally American.⁸^•⁹ She moved to South Korea in 2018 after spending 21 years of her life in Oklahoma.⁴

Debut and early releases

In 2017 she won the grand prize in Soompi's Rising Legends talent search and signed with ZB Label; the following year she competed on Mnet's survival show Produce 48 under the name Alex Christine.¹^•¹⁰ ZB Label is the first subsidiary label of ZanyBros, one of South Korea's largest music-video production companies, and AleXa was its first self-produced artist.³

Her debut single "Bomb" arrived in October 2019 with a futuristic concept in which she appears as a cyborg, and it entered the top ten of Billboard's World Digital Song Sales chart.¹^•¹⁰ The EP Do or Die followed in April 2020, and Decoherence in October 2020 produced the singles "Villain" and "Revolution". Singles through 2021 included "Never Let You Go" and "ReviveR", and in January 2022 "Tattoo" reached the top 50 in Korea.¹

American Song Contest

American Song Contest, NBC's adaptation of the Eurovision Song Contest format, premiered on March 21, 2022, hosted by Kelly Clarkson and Snoop Dogg, with contestants representing the 50 states, Washington, D.C., and five U.S. territories performing original songs.⁴ AleXa competed for Oklahoma with "Wonderland", a song she framed through the Alice in Wonderland image of the White Rabbit leading Alice, crediting the people of Oklahoma as her own White Rabbit.⁴

In the grand final she earned 656 points in the televote and finished with 710 points in total, a 200-point margin over second-place Riker Lynch of Colorado, with Jordan Smith of Kentucky third.⁴^•¹¹ The win made her one of the most streamed K-pop performers in the United States and pushed "Wonderland" into the Top 40; on the heels of the victory she appeared as a presenter at the Billboard Music Awards, the first female K-pop artist to do so.¹ She has said the contest was the turning point of her career because it finally brought her attention in Korea, where she lives, and made her feel seen as an "idol" for the first time.⁸

Later work and Melodifestivalen 2026

After the contest she continued releasing music and performing at Korean culture festivals and conventions in Europe and the Americas, and has more recently also begun presenting herself under her Korean name, Kim Seri.² Her releases include the single "Under The Armor" (December 2024), the full-length album Sugarcoat (March 7, 2025), and the singles "Tongue Tied" (February 27, 2026), "4EVR" (April 24, 2026), and "UMAMI" (June 12, 2026).⁵^•¹²

In 2026 she entered Melodifestivalen, the Swedish national selection for the Eurovision Song Contest, with "Tongue Tied", a collaboration with the Swedish songwriting teams Moonshine (Jonatan Gusmark and Ludvig Evers) and Sunshine (Ellen Berg and Moa "Cazzi Opeia" Carlebecker), writers she had worked with previously.¹³^•⁹ Days before the fifth heat in Sundsvall, an illegally recorded video of her first rehearsal leaked on X and drew mockery from Eurovision fan accounts; she responded that it was a shaky first run-through and that rehearsals exist precisely to balance sound levels and adjust to new staging technology, and SVT had the recording removed.⁹ In the heat she placed fifth with 343 points and advanced to the final qualification round (finalkval), where her 1,396,363 votes were not enough to reach the final.⁶

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Music › Music scenes › East and Southeast Asian pop scenes › K-pop and the Korean popular music scene › Artists, groups, and people: K-pop and the Korean popular music scene › Project groups, units, idol bands, solo idols, localized, and virtual groups

Initially written Sep 17, 2026 · Reviewed: Sep 17, 2026; Sep 18, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Sep 18, 2026; Oct 12, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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