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aespa Tap G-DRAGON for New Single “WDA (Whole Different Animal)” Ahead of LEMONADE
aespa debut “WDA (Whole Different Animal)” with G-DRAGON and set up their upcoming album LEMONADE, out May 29.
aespa have kicked off their next album cycle with “WDA (Whole Different Animal),” a bass-heavy, synth-driven single featuring G-DRAGON of BIGBANG, released Monday, May 11. The track is the first look at the group’s upcoming second studio album, LEMONADE, due May 29, and it arrives with the kind of stylistic muscle aespa have made central to their rise: sharp hooks, genre overlap, and a carefully managed sense of spectacle.
The new song leans into dance-pop energy but keeps its footing in hip-hop, with English and Korean lyrics woven through the track. G-DRAGON appears on the third verse, adding his rap to a song that keeps returning to its blunt hook, “She a whole different animal,” before landing on the line, “Give me all smoke, gun powder, powder.” It’s an obvious bid for impact, but also a reminder that aespa have increasingly been willing to treat their singles like statements rather than just comebacks.
That idea carries over into the video, which extends the group’s ongoing fascination with digital identity and fractured reality. In the visual for “WDA (Whole Different Animal),” replicas of Karina, Giselle, Winter and Ningning keep multiplying, blurring the line between what’s authentic and what’s manufactured. The video eventually resolves that tension by letting the group push through the noise and reassert themselves, a neat visual metaphor for a group whose whole brand has long been tied to the unstable space between real and virtual.
GISELLE aka aerichandesu, Ningning, Karina, Winter of aespa at the Billboard Women in Music 2025 held at the YouTube Theater on March 29, 2025 in Los Angeles, California.
Gilbert Flores/Billboard
The release comes at a busy moment for aespa, who were named Group of the Year at the 2025 Billboard Women in Music awards. Their LEMONADE rollout was announced in April, following 2024’s Whiplash, which reached No. 8 on the Billboard 200. The new album also sets up the group’s fourth world tour, SYNK: COMPLæXITY, which begins August 7 with two nights in Seoul. From there, it moves through more dates in Asia before heading to North America and then Europe.
The timing matters. aespa have spent the last few years turning each era into a more expansive project than the one before, and LEMONADE looks built to continue that pattern rather than interrupt it. Fans can pre-order the album here and watch the music video for “WDA (Whole Different Animal)” below.
