Who are Aespa (에스파), the first K-pop girl group in the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade?

One of the year's best-selling artists are set to appear at the Macy's parade, but their name may be unfamiliar to American ears. Aespa is a four-member K-pop group formed by SM Entertainment in South Korea who have released a small number of massively popular songs over the past year.

Even though the group debuted during a global pandemic and only just passed their one year anniversary, Aespa gathered an unprecedented amount of attention online with two mega hits, "Black Mamba" and "Next Level", each with nearly 200 million views on Youtube. Their latest album "Savage" hit #1 on the Billboard World Albums chart and the South Korean Gaon chart and sold half a million copies within 15 days after its release.

Aespa will appear on the "Her Future is STEM-Sational" float by beauty brand Olay, but they are not scheduled to perform. In 2019, labelmates NCT 127 became the first Korean act to appear and perform in the parade.

Catch Karina, Giselle, Winter, and NingNing at the parade on Thursday, November 25th on NBC stations.

Bonus

Aespa is actually part of a sci-fi storyline called the SM Culture Universe where they are fighting a force that is trying to break their connection with four matching digital avatars who live in a virtual world. There are big plans for the storytelling universe, but so far the story has mainly shown up as references like a black mamba appearing in multiple music videos 🤷

Update

Watch new footage below as Aespa makes an appearance in Midtown and rehearses "Savage" outside Macy's — Looks like they may perform after all!