K-Pop Star to Watch: aespa

The SM Entertainment group is part of the new wave of acts driving the genre forward.

aespa (Photo credit: SM Entertainment)

Aespa is, quite literally, taking K-pop to the next level. The powerhouse girl group — whose name combines the words “avatar,” “experience” and “aspect” — is the first K-pop act to include both human and virtual members. (Giselle, Winter, Karina and Ningning each have their own digital avatars known as “ae.”) They’re also the first artists that SM Entertainment launched as part of its SM Culture Universe, a shared fictional realm of the label’s artists akin to the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

When aespa debuted in 2020 with the futuristic “Black Mamba” music video, it became the most-viewed debut K-pop clip on YouTube within 24 hours, erasing any doubt about whether its novel cyberpunk-themed concept of artificial intelligence would fly with audiences. Since then, six of its songs — including 2022 Korean Music Awards song of the year “Next Level” — have landed on the Billboard Global 200, and both of its albums, 2021’s Savage and 2022’s Girls, reached the top spot on the World Albums chart. (Girls featured aespa’s first English-language song, “Life’s Too Short.”) The act has also played Coachella and will perform at New York’s Governors Ball and San Francisco’s Outside Lands festivals later this year. On top of all that, aespa has been working on a new album, telling Billboard, “We hope our fans around the world love the sound and energy of our forthcoming music. We think it’s our best yet!”

This article originally appeared on Billboard.