Rising stars of K-pop: Lightsum talk about their debut single Vanilla, training to become K-pop stars, and ice cream
- The eight-piece girl group released their debut single Vanilla last week, which gained two million views by the next morning
- They talk about debuting after so long spent training, why they got into K-pop, and how they get inspired
Since 2009, South Korean media company Cube Entertainment has made its name launching K-pop girl groups 4Minute, CLC, and (G)I-dle. This week, the eight-member Lightsum debuted with the single Vanilla, continuing Cube’s girl group lineage. The music video of the song saw a lot of interest, receiving over 2 million views in less than 24 hours.
Ahead of its launch, the members of the group – Juhyeon, Jian, Chowon, Yujeong, Sangah, Hina, Nayoung and Huiyeon – spoke with the Post over a video call from Seoul to share their thoughts on their debut, the sense of anticipation after training for this for so long, and their love of ice cream.
What does Vanilla represent to you as your debut song?
Juhyeon: We think it’ll be the perfect song to introduce Lightsum to the world because if you add anything to vanilla ice cream, it would change its flavour very evidently. The song represents how we’re able to get the topping [that brings an exciting new taste]. The aim of the song is for it to be a gift that can bring something special to our listeners’ ordinary, everyday life. It’ll be the specialness, or the topping on top, of their daily lives. And although we’re just releasing one single, we think that listeners will be able to hear each of our own individual colours and strengths.
Cube has produced many girl groups over the years. How do you feel Lightsum differentiates itself from previous teams?
Juhyeon: Previous groups produced by Cube were a little bit more conceptual and intense, with strong images. We aim to be a friendlier kind of act, more approachable, more relatable, and a little bit more intimate than previous girl groups. Past groups were formed kind of more based around storytelling and specific ideas, but for us we hope to be more like our listeners’ friends.