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New Music Friday: Jay Park, Jeon Somi & dearALICE Deliver Crossover

—Jay Park originally released his single “MOMMAE” in 2015 with the song reaching the Top 15 of both Korea’s singles chart and Billboard’s World Digital Songs chart. Now, 10 years later, Jay is delivering a Part 2 to “MOMMAE” (which essentially translates to “body shape” in Korean) with soloist Jeon Somi coming in for an unexpectedly sexy cameo.

Utilizing the same beat from the original track, “Keep It Sexy (MOMMAE 2)” delivers a nasty back-and-forth between the crossover stars all in English. While the Korean-American rapper has been delivering strong and sensual songs for a majority of his career in both Korean and English — lines like “Licky-licky, it gets real sticky / Wanna put the mouse in the house like Mickey” have a signature cheese that really only Park can get away with. It’s still a little bit shocking hearing Somi (who most K-pop fans were first introduced to when she was just 14 years old competing for a spot in TWICE on the survival singing competition series Sixteen, before making her official debut less than a year later) singing lines like “On the mattress, you be tappin’ out / In the crowd, my body’s poppin’ out,” even though she has been active in this industry for a decade and is 24 today.

“Keep It Sexy (MOMMAE 2)” didn’t come with an official visual. But suppose there’s a sophisticated video to show that Somi is truly grown up? Audiences will truly see her as a grown woman, not the young teen that K-pop fans unanimously fell in love with, all to signify a major new chapter in her career.

—British boy band dearALICE remain a bit of a mystery to me. They supposedly are a joint venture between the now-combined forces of SM and Kakao Entertainment, along with the U.K. television production company Moon&Back Media, with gamma. later brought into their “global alliance” for the group. The quintet debuted with the terribly titled first single “Ariana” (I’m sorry, “Ariana” by dearALICE — it just looks confusing), but they are back with a second single that was first teased at the SMTOWN Live Concerts in Seoul, Mexico City, and Los Angeles.

While “Ariana” seemed to be squarely focused on the Western market, the new single “Sweet” actually incorporates some of the K-pop talents that one would assume dearALICE would have ready at its disposal. Producers like Pink Slip on this record, who has been absolutely killing it on the scene lately with songs like KATSEYE’s “Gnarly,” and working with the likes of FLETCHER and SEVENTEEN, as is Inverness, who have been rising with credits like Kang Daniel, CIX, Jack Harlow, Mark Tuan and PrettyMuch. They sound more at home on this song and already have SM label mates Red Velvet dancing with them to the song. We’ll see where it goes.

—Despite stock markets slipping amid tariff concerns, K-pop entertainment companies were able to rise. “SM Entertainment, home to aespa and RIIZE, led music stocks with a 10.6% gain. Two Chinese music streamers, Netease Cloud Music and Tencent Music Entertainment (TME), followed with gains of 7.0% and 5.4%, respectively. HYBE, home to BTS and its members’ solo projects, was close behind with a 4.0% gain.” JYP Entertainment had a 2.2% gain. (Billboard)

—Big Ocean, K-pop’s first deaf group, was featured on GRAMMY.com where writer Tan I. Raj delivered a wide-ranging interview that got into super interesting topics I haven’t seen discussed by the group, or any K-pop acts, in a feature worth a full read with some highlights below.

• Why Big Ocean call their genre “Free Soul Pop”: “We wanted to [have] diversity in the music we pursue. So we incorporated sign language into the music. That way, more people could listen to the music because there are a lot of people who are hard of hearing. We, as Big Ocean, wanted to give audiences another way to sing a song. We were giving an example of enjoying music in a different way. And that led to Free Soul pop: find your own music, find music that can meet your needs.” -PJ

• Audience cheering actually makes performances more difficult: “When we went to K-Expo in Paris last year, there were huge screams and chanting from the audience. We were very flattered and honored, but at the same time, we couldn’t hear the song at all. So we had to just wait until the screaming died down. And one of the members was able to catch the lyrics” -Jiseok

• Regarding K-pop idol life concerns, Chanyeon shared, “Unlike the other two members, I learned sign language after getting into Parastar [Entertainment, the group’s agency]. The other two, [their] mother tongue was sign language, but mine was not. I was learning it as a foreign language. I was very worried that I might not be able to get to the point where the other boys were” while PJ said his top concern was “eating food” because “After becoming an idol, I couldn't have a lot of delicious food because I had to diet.”

• On being open about using AI to “create certain sections” of their songs and how “AI can help differently-abled people”: “There was a time, when the camera was first [introduced] to society, there were many people saying that the camera would just get in the way of the arts and be an enemy of the arts. But later, there was photography [as an] art coming in instead. I think AI is the same. It's another tool and technology we can adapt to art and music. It's not like [we’re] attacking the former or traditional music, but it's just something that adds to it.” -Jiseok

—Stray Kids’ member Felix has been a longtime Louis Vuitton brand ambassador, and even a runway model for the French luxury brand, with his appearance at the LV Cruise 2026 show in France gaining attention across a few outlets. “For the fashion show, Felix opted for a sleek suit with contemporary tailoring. The suit featured a very light, muted blue tone with a sharp collar, omitting lapels. The blazer included long sleeves and buttons hidden under the front placket of the jacket.” (WWD)

Teen Vogue adds, “We have to talk about the color of Felix’s suit, because it's absolutely stunning — the ideal blend of light blue and a subtle, soft gray tone, which looked so good against Felix’s blonde hair. Pastels always feel so cool and springy; sure it's a little ‘expected’ to wear a pastel color come spring and summer, but when it looks this good, who can blame you? The pastel blue shade is one of the buzziest of the season. (Sabrina Carpenter, another noted baby blue fan, would agree.)”

Also, here’s a combo you probably weren’t expecting: Felix with Selma, Queen Sugar and A Wrinkle in Time director Ava Duvernay seated at the show that included attendees like Cate Blanchett, Jaden Smith, Emma Stone and more.

—I can’t overstate how much I love this cover of men’s fashion and lifestyle mag Arena Homme+ Korea featuring Wooyoung of ATEEZ. The magazine also had another amazing cover with Hyunjin of Stray Kids recently too. I don’t know much about the publication itself but major props to the creative teams here. Check out more about the brand here: @arenakorea

—Are you down with Labubu?

BLACKPINK’s Lisa is among the stars being counted as helping the little goblin accessory friend trend around the world, alongside Rihanna and Dua Lipa. Crossover songwriter Vanessa Jefferson is taking her Labubu very seriously, bringing them to Coachella.

Mashable’s always ahead-of-the-game digital culture editor Crystal Bell wrote about The Cult and Community of Labubu which you can read for the full lore. And now I kind of want one?

—Shoutout to my friend Laura Sirkul who literally interviewed Stitch (yes, Stitch of the new Lilo & Stich remake) and got him (it?) to talk about his favorite K-pop group and which member is his favorite as well. So funny and cute. Well done, Laura.