Aespa Continues Fictional Struggle Against Black Mamba In The Third Mini Album, My World

Aespa (twitter.com/aespa_official)

JAKARTA - K-pop idol group aespa released their third mini album (EP) titled My World on Monday, May 8. This album takes the fictional stories of members returning to the real world after adventure in the world of the metaverse.

"In the previous season, we talked more about defeating Black Mamba in Kwangya. But this album tells what happened after we returned to the real world," Winter said as quoted by Yonhap, Tuesday, May 9.

My World explores the continuation of aespa's fictional story against the evil Black Mamba character. This character interferes with Ningning, Winter, Giselle, and Karina's relationship with their respective avatar partners in the metaverse and threatens to destroy the digital world.

Aespa members then beat the enemy with the help of their artificial intelligence guide Naevis in Girls, the final episode of SM Culture Universe aespa season one.

In their latest mini album, they appear as cheerful young women when they return to the real world. However, the anomaly continues as the members bring Naevis to the real world. Naevis himself was kicked out of his world for helping Ningning, Winter, Giselle, and Karina.

My World's mini album consists of six songs from various genres, one of which is Welcome to My World which features Naevis as a virtual human artist. In addition, the songs also include the main singles of Spice, Salty & Sweet, Thirty, I'm Unhappy, and Til We Meet Again.

The music video Welcome to My World was released a week before the release of the mini album. The title refers to the invitation of members to Naevis to the real world. The title can also be meaningful to invite listeners to the world of aespa music.

According to Giselle, at first the song was performed in full by Naevis which then featured the four aespa members. However, after hearing the song, the members were interested in performing it in full.

"We have collaborated with virtual artists for dance and music videos, this marks our first collaboration with him (Naevis) for the album," Karina was quoted as saying by ANTARA.

"The results are better than we expected. I was surprised because he looks very natural like other members of the group," he added.

Starting his debut in November 2020 with a metaverse-based concept, the popularity of aespa has grown rapidly through their hit songs such as Next Level and Black Mamba, as well as EP Savage and Girls.

In April last year, they became the first Korean girl group to appear on the main stage of the Coachella Festival in the United States. Three months later, EP Girls reached third on the Billboard 200, making it the third K-pop girl group to occupy the top three positions after BLACKPINK and TWICE.

With My World reportedly printing pre-messages of more than 1.8 million copies on Monday, May 8, aespa will start a good start with its new EP.