Ruochen Shi graduated from Columbia with a finance degree and had investment banking lined up before she quit to enroll at Icon Collective instead, building CHYL from scratch as a pioneer of 150bpm Speed House rather than following the safer path her degree pointed toward.
A viral 2022 remix of Kanye West's "Mercy" and a mainstage debut at Countdown Festival that same year turned her into an actual name, and Dim Mak signed her in January 2023 after releases on Monstercat and Bassrush — she's also the first woman to land a song at No. 1 on a Best Of compilation in the genre, a fast rise for someone barely three years removed from a finance degree.