As they clarify the importance of their new title, ablume, it turns into clear that this second isn’t nearly shifting ahead.
“We’ve been ready for this second for a very long time,” Aran says. “I do know that a second probability is one thing treasured, so I’m actually grateful for the whole lot I’m experiencing proper now. In fact, it’s been onerous. There have been instances I felt afraid due to all of the challenges we confronted. However we’re on this collectively, and we’ve turned these fears into overwhelming happiness. By our music, we wish to present people who we’ve overcome it and that they’ll overcome their struggles, too.”
These challenges got here to a head in the summertime of 2023. Within the wake of “Cupid”’s ascent, Aran, Sio, and Saena had been caught in a whirlwind of legal turmoil, as tensions with their administration firm, ATTRAKT, escalated. The members of FIFTY FIFTY alleged a lack of transparency around their contracts and poor working conditions. Behind the scenes, the members say they had been quietly struggling. In June, the group filed an application for a provisional injunction to droop their unique contracts, citing what they described as the corporate’s failure to offer accounting information and to safeguard their bodily and psychological well-being. The authorized battle that adopted was each painful and public, enjoying out in headlines as followers watched anxiously. Seoul Central District Courtroom rejected their utility for contract suspension. After months of back-and-forth court docket filings and appeals, the company terminated their contracts in October. (Teen Vogue has reached out to ATTRAKT for remark.)
As a result of the legal proceedings are ongoing, they’ll’t converse in a lot element in regards to the fallout with their earlier company. But, Saena says the important thing subject was a “lack of communication and belief,” including, “We felt that we weren’t capable of do music, and after cautious consideration, we made the choice [to file the injunction] due to these points. It was onerous, however we knew the results, and we had no different alternative.”
However earlier than they may bloom into one thing new, every of them needed to survive the fallout of the whole lot they’d misplaced. The sudden halt to their actions, simply as “Cupid” was reaching its peak, left a void, each professionally and personally. With out music, with out a clear path ahead, the times blurred collectively. They had been not idols shifting at breakneck velocity; they had been younger ladies of their late teenagers and early twenties attempting to make sense of what had occurred.
“I felt like I misplaced my voice,” Aran says quietly. “I put the whole lot down. I simply stayed in my room, sleeping and consuming. That was my routine, nothing else. I didn’t wish to, however I needed to step away from music for a second.” She pauses, then provides, with conviction: “Now, having the ability to sing and dance once more, I really feel alive. That is what I’ve needed my complete life.”
For Saena, the juxtaposition of success and wrestle was particularly disorienting. “I used to be so grateful and proud that ‘Cupid’ obtained a lot love from followers world wide,” she says. “However on the identical time, I used to be going by my very own psychological struggles.” After the whole lot got here crashing down, she targeted on therapeutic by music, hobbies, and ultimately, remedy. “Skilled assist gave me a lot constructive vitality,” she says. “If there’s anybody on the market going by one thing related, I hope they’re not afraid to hunt assist. It actually made a distinction for me.”
