Controversial Girl Group Becomes The Only K-Pop Act On Billboard’s 2025 “21 Under 21” List

There’s another HYBE group in the list.

On May 16 (local time), Billboard released its iconic “21 Under 21” list, naming the most influential artists under the age of 21.

The list is created based on various criteria, including album sales, streaming numbers, and influence over the music industry, and it includes only one K-Pop act this year— NJZ (formerly known as NewJeans).

| @newjeans_official/Instagram

Despite their recent legal conflicts with HYBE and ADOR, NJZ has managed to secure a place on the list for the second year in a row. Billboard emphasized that the group continued to perform highly on global charts, which contributed to their being chosen among their peers.

Second EP Get Up, which topped the Billboard 200 in 2023, earned an additional 227,000 equivalent album units last year, according to Luminate, and landed at No. 3 on the 2024 year-end World Albums chart and No. 50 on Top Album Sales. NewJeans’ two single releases in 2024, “How Sweet” and “Supernatural,” earned 51.6 million and 41.2 million official on-demand U.S. streams, respectively, for the year. Plus, HYBE reports that the physical versions of both singles sold over 1 million copies globally, marking the group’s fourth and fifth consecutive physical releases to reach the threshold.

— Billboard

While NJZ were the only K-Pop artists on the list, another HYBE girl group also made it to the lineup— KATSEYE. Billboard talked at length about the chemistry of the six members and teased the release of their second EP, Beautiful Chaos, following their 2024 release, SIS (Soft is Strong).

KATSEYE | Billboard

Meanwhile, between 2010 and 2025, only eight K-Pop acts have made their way to the “21 Under 21” list. Apart from NJZ, who were mentioned in both 2024 and 2025, the other acts who featured on the list are: NCT Dream (2018-2020), TWICE (2017), SEVENTEEN (2015), AKMU (2014), Lee Hi (2013), IU (2012), HyunA (2011), and Wonder Girls (2010).