This morning, at what was midnight on Friday in South Korea, YG Entertainment executive producer Yang Hyun-suk announced the final BabyMonster member lineup and a broad window when the long-anticipated K-pop girl group might debut. All seven members — Ruka, Pharita, Asa, Ahyeon, Haram, Rora, and Chiquita — will debut, and the current hope is that they will debut by sometime in fall 2023.
Yang made the announcement as ludicrously dramatic as possible though, explaining that he had intended for the group to be only five members. In fact, he initially put up a physical board that only had five slots on it, and he filled it with Ahyeon, Ruka, Chiquita, Haram, and Pharita. (It sounds like Ahyeon is the leader.) Rora and Asa were absent. Yang explained that Rora was still so young and that he had plans for her to be the main vocalist of a future YG group, and similarly, he had plans to prominently feature Asa in a planned future Japanese group. But due to fan feedback, whom he also considers to be part of the “YG Family,” he relented and decided the final BabyMonster member lineup will include all seven members.
Two weeks ago, YG Entertainment had revealed that this big announcement would be made today, following the conclusion of the eight-episode Last Evaluation documentary series, which had chronicled the BabyMonster members’ journey toward debut. Now, we finally have the good news that everyone will debut, and the fans are ecstatic. This group is likely to be a major contender to ADOR‘s NewJeans, another massively popular young group who can speak plenty of English like some in BabyMonster do.
