CL was born in Seoul, South Korea, but spent most of her childhood living in Paris, Tsukuba Science City and Tokyo. She attended international schools. When she was 13, she moved back to Paris alone where she studied for two years. She got an audition with YG Entertainment when she was 15.

CL's first feature on a song recording was Big Bang's "Intro (Hot Issue)" in 2007. Later that year, she had her first stage debut at Seoul Broadcasting System's Music Awards alongside her label mates at YG Entertainment. Her first credited appearance in a song was in 2008, with Uhm Jung-hwa's "DJ," in which she rapped. She trained in JYP Entertainment before joining YG Entertainment, and became a member of the girl group 2NE1.

The group's name was initially announced as "21"; however, due to the discovery of a singer with the same name, the group was renamed "2NE1." Lee Chaerin took on the stage name 'CL' and was placed as the lead rapper, alongside Bom, Sandara Park and Minzy. The group then collaborated with label-mates Big Bang for the song "Lollipop" before officially debuting on SBS's The Music Trend on May 17, 2009 where they performed "Fire". 2NE1 has since released two eponymous extended plays, 2NE1 (2009) and 2NE1 (2011), and two studio albums, To Anyone (2010) and Crush (2014) in addition to several non-album singles. Their first EP spawned the number-one single "I Don't Care", which won them the "Song of the Year" award at the 2009 Mnet Asian Music Awards, making them the first rookie group to win a daesung the same year of debut (2 wins). 2NE1 returned with their first full-length album To Anyone with the multiple title tracks "Clap Your Hands", "Go Away", and "Can't Nobody" which occupied the top 3 spots on all music charts. The digital sales from the album made them the best-selling girl-group when combined that year.[9] Again, 2NE1 walked away with many top awards, most notably the "Artist of the Year" and "Album of the Year" awards at the MAMA's, where they won 4 awards out of the 6 they were nominated for.

heir second EP continued their digital best-selling album status for the year of 2011, where all songs but 2 charted at number-one. The single 'I Am the Best' won them their second "Artist of the Year" award and is widely considered to be their signature and most iconic song. The song was used later as the background music for Microsoft's Surface Pro 3 tablet laptop commercial in 2014. Due to its continued popularity, the song was re-released as a single in that year and debuted at #1 on Billboard's World Digital Songs chart, making them the first and only girl-group to do so and the second Korean act to chart that high after PSY. In 2012-2013, 2NE1 released only singles, which produced the number-one hits "I Love You" (2012), "Falling in Love" and "Missing You" (2013). Both "I Love You" and "Missing You" won the "Digital Bonsang" award at the Golden Disk Awards, which is otherwise known to be the equivalent of Song of the Year. In 2014, they released their second full-length album Crush which spawned the number-one single "Come Back Home" and the top 5 hit "Gotta Be You". The singles swept real time charts and was the most downloaded album for that year, ultimately winning them the "Singer of the Year" award at the Gaon Chart K-Pop Awards for the month of (March). They were also honored by Youtube for the album's lead single, and were the only Korean acts featured on the list alongside Bigbang. 2NE1’s second album Crush, CL wrote the lyrics and co-composed the music for the tracks "Crush", "If I Were You", and "Baby I Miss You". She also did the lyrics for her solo track "MTBD", as well as the track "Scream".

Korean, South Korea, Entertainers, Musician, Artists, Music, Entertainment Industry, Musical Performance, Pop Music, Rap & Hip Hop, Rapper, Pop singer Pop Culture,