There’s another hip-hop girl group in K-pop town, but it’s confident that it’s more than “just another girl group" — meet Badvillain.

Badvillain debuted on June 3 with “Overstep” as the first girl group from Big Planet Made, a K-pop agency home to Taemin of boy band SHINee, girl group Viviz and more. Three weeks after its debut, the group released a special single titled “Hurricane” on June 24. “Zoom” is the group's most recent release.


“This is our first new music in five months and we really thought about how we can show how much we’ve grown during that time,” leader Chloe Young said during a showcase held on Tuesday at the Yes24 Live Hall music venue in eastern Seoul.

Tuesday’s event with reporters was the members’ first, as the group did not hold a debut showcase.

Badvillain has been pushing for a bad-girl hip-hop concept, which has been the lesser chosen path for K-pop girl groups in recent years. Girl groups aespa, Young Posse, tripleS, NMIXX, XG are some groups exploring a harder sound as opposed to the softer, melodic music pursued by leading girl groups such as NewJeans, IVE, Fifty Fifty, Kiss of Life, (G)I-DLE and more.

“Zoom” is pronounced with an “S” sound in Korean, which translates to “breath,” and means that the band will breathe a new trend into the K-pop scene with its music, according to Hu’e.

“Our goal is to break the rules of convention,” she said. “We’re called ‘bad villain,’ but we actually want to be called the heroes of the stage. We’ll aim to show a cooler, tougher side of ourselves with ‘Zoom.’”

Badvillain has seven members: Emma, Chloe Young, Hu'e, Yunseo, Ina, Vin and Kelly.

Emma is a member of the project dance crew "Want" that appeared on Mnet's audition program, "Street Woman Fighter” (2023). Chloe Young is a former member of famed Korean dance crew 1Million. Hu'e and Yunseo were participants in MBC's idol audition program, "My Teenage Girl" (2021). Ina, Vin and Kelly all have prior experience in dance academies.

The members’ background in dancing particularly shows through during live performances, but the group also strives to prove that it’s more than just a dance crew.

“We’ve been working on our vocals more so that we can prove ourselves more as artists, not just with our dance performance,” Emma said. “But the members are also diligent in their dance practice and so our hope is to prove ourselves on both sides. We’ll keep on trying harder to make sure that everyone sees the effort we’ve been making.”

Big Planet Made is a subsidiary of One Hundred, a company co-founded by rapper MC Mong and P Arc Group chairman Cha Ga-won. EXO member Baekhyun's agency, INB100, joined as a subsidiary of One Hundred and all members of boy band The Boyz will sign with One Hundred after their contract with IST Entertainment ends next month.

BY YOON SO-YEON [yoon.soyeon@joongang.co.kr]