Aespa’s ‘Black Mamba’ Set Record for Fastest Debut K-pop Music Video To Surpass 100 Million Views
Karina, Giselle, Winter, and Ningning debuted as aespa on Nov. 17, 2020. The K-pop group is the first girl group to debut under SM Entertainment since Red Velvet debuted in 2014.
“Black Mamba” served as aespa’s debut single, and the music video for “Black Mamba” became the fastest debut K-pop music video to surpass 100 million views.
A look at aespa’s concept
SuperM released a music video for their single “One (Monster & Infinity)” on Sept. 25, 2020. In the ending scene of the music video, aespa’s logo was originally revealed. In October 2020, SM Entertainment announced its plan to debut a new group.
“SM Entertainment’s new girl group aespa will debut in November,” the company said in a press release. “The group name ‘aespa’ is a name created by combining ‘ae’ which expresses ‘Avatar X Experience’ and the English word ‘aspect’ which means both sides, and ‘Meet your other ego, Avatar and You will experience a new world’ is epoch-making based on the world view…”
Each member of aespa has a virtual avatar counterpart, and aespa’s concept features a “real world” and a “virtual world.”
“As you can see, ‘aespa’ has artist members who exist in the real world. The real world. And there are avatar members who exist in the virtual world. The storytelling is about how they interact and communicate through the digital world, a space between reality and virtuality… it will be a new group with a revolutionary identity,” said Lee Soo-man, the founder of SM Entertainment, at the 2020 World Cultural Industry Forum.
aespa set a record with ‘Black Mamba’
Karina, Giselle, Winter, and Ningning officially debuted as aespa with the single “Black Mamba.” The song’s music video was released on Nov. 17, 2020, at 6 p.m. KST. Within 24 hours, “Black Mamba” surpassed 21 million views, becoming the most-viewed debut K-pop music video within the first 24 hours.
According to a press release, the “Black Mamba” music video surpassed 100 million views in 51 days and 12 hours. With this, the “Black Mamba” music video became the fastest debut K-pop music video to surpass 100 million views.
“We were absolutely delighted to hear that our ‘Black Mamba’ music video reached more than 100 million views,” aespa said in the press release. “It’s very meaningful to have achieved this with our debut song. We’d like to thank all our fans for their incredible love and support. In 2021, we’ll continue to bring great music and bright energy and we hope everyone looks forward to it!”
Fans celebrated aespa’s accomplishment
SM Entertainment announced that the “Black Mamba” music video reached 100 million views on Jan. 7, 2021. After the company announced the accomplishment, fans celebrated for aespa on social media.
“yess, rookie queens!! they deserve it! hopefully we can continue to increase the views on their comebacks,” a fan wrote on Reddit.
One Reddit user wrote, “Makes sense, the song is a bop and the girls are adorable!”
