FORBES
[2021 KOREA POWER CELEBRITY(40)] Rising star
Meanwhile, on the side of Hallyu idols that lead the world trend, the girl group aespa, which SM released six years after Red Velvet, has emerged. The American People Magazine selected aespa first when selecting 30 teams of'talent emerging artists who are prominent in the music industry in 2021'. People Magazine said about Espa, “a K-pop girl group that is rapidly rising to the top.” “The music video for their debut song'Black Mamba' is the debut music video of a K-pop group that achieved 100 million views, the fastest in YouTube history.
Despite the difficult environment for newcomers from start-up companies rather than large agencies, STAYC, a girl group belonging to a new small and medium-sized company, gained popularity as soon as it debuted, and stood tall as the next-generation Korean Wave. In 2020, it was ranked 1st in the single album sales chart in the new female category, and ranked 21st on the Billboard'World Digital Song Sales Chart'. This is an exceptional achievement as a rookie from a new company who cannot receive support from the existing Hallyu fandom.
Among the boy group rookies, YG's TREASURE played a big role. After 4 months of debut, they won the 2020 Asian Artist Awards (2020 AAA) Rookie of the Year Award in the singer category, and in the 2020 K-Pop ranking of Twitter,'TOP 10 Fastest-Rising K-pop Artists in the World' category, TREASURE ranked #1, they also ranked 6th in the'TOP 10 Most Mentioned K-pop Artists in the World' category. It is attracting attention as the next generation of Hallyu stars in Japan, so there is a lot of interest in whether a second big bang craze is possible
