Blackpink is basically the second most popular K-pop group in the world, after BTS, and Blackpink belongs to the company YG Entertainment. However, Blackpink debuted back in 2016, so YG is gearing up to finally debut its next girl group. That group will be BabyMonster, which, true to its name, has several potential members that are not very old, currently including two 14-year-olds. And today, YG executive producer Yang Hyun-suk announced that the final member lineup of BabyMonster will be announced on May 12, 2023 at 12:00 a.m. KST (which means 11:00 a.m. EST on Thursday, May 11).
The Final BabyMonster Member Lineup Will Be Revealed Soon
Yang Hyun-suk made this announcement at the end of Last Evaluation episode 8 today, a documentary series detailing the training journey and titular last evaluation of the seven potential BabyMonster candidates. He has said on a few occasions now that he does not imagine Babymonster as a seven-member group, and in fact he had originally imagined the group as being five members. However, since all seven members have been seen together on BabyMonster social media recently, fans speculate that all of this is mere marketing fluff and that all seven members will debut together. That is definitely what would make everyone happy, especially after watching eight episodes of a documentary designed to endear K-pop fans to these girls.
The seven member candidates are Ruka, Pharita, Asa, Ahyeon, Haram, Rora, and Chiquita, two of whom are from Japan and two of whom are from Thailand. At least two of them, if not four or five of them, speak English, so it’s clear that YG has created this group with the intention of making a killing off of marketing the group internationally. YG’s aim is inevitably to replicate and surpass the success of Blackpink.
Whoever ultimately arrives in the final BabyMonster member lineup, their major competition in K-pop will be the similarly young and fresh NewJeans, who has been dominating the Korean charts despite only having a total of seven songs, one of which is a Coca-Cola product placement song. NewJeans will perform at Lollapalooza this year, and they also have English-speaking members. Regardless, it’s been a good year for K-pop internationally, as not just NewJeans but even tiny-company group Fifty Fifty have broken into the Billboard Hot 100.
