Culture
Grimes Says She Emails Aespa’s Manager “All The Time”
Perhaps we’ll see an aespa x NPC collaboration someday?
Grimes: visionary artist, AI advocate, and K-pop stan. Like most of the world, Grimes, too, can’t get enough of the K-pop group aespa, as she revealed in the Instagram comments earlier this week.
On Instagram, one caps-loving fan wrote: “DO YOU KNOW AESPA,” to which Grimes responded, “I literally have been emailing their manager all the time,” she replied, adding, “I love them,” immediately inciting requests for a collaboration.
It’s a match made in cyber heaven: Grimes recently debuted her AI girl group NPC with DJ Chris Lake’s track “A Drug From God,” which aespa fans quickly noted sounded similar to the group. Grimes also boldly brought AI into the motherhood conversation, releasing an AI lullaby to help X AE A-XII sleep, and her next album is going to be a space opera about a lesbian AI romance.
aesapa — which is made up of Karina, Winter, Giselle, and Ningning — are also big AI advocates. Each has their own AI avatars, known as the æs, which live in the digital world as friends, companions, and support systems to the actual members. The avatars are such a part of the group that they’re considered members in their own right: "We are an eight-piece group," Karina said in a press conference for their single “Next Level,” released in May 2021. "We took lessons for a long time to fully understand our concept and universe. Now, we know who we are."
We know less about what the members of NPC look like. Grimes explained last week that she’s still working on the girls’ “visual development,” writing: “Were super behind on everything and you’ll all see why in a month or so , so I apologize abt delays of music and visuals. Gna be catching up on the girls visual development and whatnot - but me and @chrislake just needed to get this song out cuz it’s been going so hard at festivals!!!!”
While we eagerly await NPC details, all eight of aespa’s members are at the top of their game: Earlier this month, it was announced that they will be the first K-pop girl group to perform at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade, where they will be playing on Olay’s STEM float, which simultaneously encourages young wannabe girl bosses to both study science and technology and...buy Olay beauty products? You can watch the parade on November 25 from 9 am to 12 pm EST.
