As Kep1er Celebrates a Billboard Debut, A New Era Begins

Their sixth EP “TIPI-TAP” offers a new sound and an intriguing pivot for a group who has outlasted many project groups.

From the standards set by K-Pop groups formed on competition shows, Kep1er was never supposed to make it this far. 

This month the group released their sixth mini-album “TIPI-TAP”, marking a new era for the girls. Formed in 2022 as a project girl group on Girls Planet 999, Kep1er was only contracted to perform together through July 2024. But in May, the group’s agency WAKEONE announced something unprecedented: Kep1er would continue group activities past their original contract deadline. 

Following the departure of Kang Ye-seo and Mashiro, the group reorganized as seven members with Yujin, Xiaoting, Chaehyun, Dayeon, Hikaru, Huening Bahiyyih, and Youngeun remaining, and signed with a new management company, KLAP Entertainment. This EP marks their first as seven members. 

Today, the EP debuted at number 147 on the Billboard 200, making Kep1er only the third, non-Big Four, girl group to land on the chart. The girls soared higher in other charts, too, ranking at #44 on the Billboard Artist Chart – a milestone for the group. 

But perhaps where Kep1er scores the best advantage is with the music itself. For much of their time in K-Pop, Kep1er has struggled to define themselves as a group. Their debut single “WA DA DA” was never made for them; it was a concept song intended for whoever won Girls Planet 999, and it never played to the nine members’ strengths. “WA DA DA” would have, perhaps, been better suited for a group like aespa – four women who make you believe that they are as bad as they claim to be. 

But Kep1er was never going to be like aespa or even LE SSERAFIM, another popular girl group who use sexuality and a brassy toughness to their advantage. Instead, Kep1er’s members seemed to share more in common with the softer sounds of girl groups like Oh My Girl or the imperial IZ*ONE, another iconic project girl group. Listen to Oh My Girl’s whimsical “Secret Garden” and you might hear how Kep1er would comfortably sell the same sound.

Authenticity, as I saw it, was always the problem with Kep1er. The two-year contract was so short that the members would never have enough time to carve out their sound. While other groups spend years training together as their companies built concepts to support their strengths, Kep1er was given an identity as a powerful girl group, and was made to fit into it. 

When the group released tracks like “We Fresh” or “UP!”, the results were reductive. Instead of projecting to the girls’ charms, the songs felt like they could be performed by any nugu girl group. What makes the cheery production of “We Fresh” any different from a Weeekly concept? Very little. 

This one-size fits all approach hampered Kep1er’s momentum for the first two years of their career. It wasn’t until “Kep1going On”, released in June, that WAKEONE finally understood what kind of girl group Kep1er should be. This decision, to be fair, would have likely taken two years had the girls trained together. But Kep1er was not given the grace of time to find themselves. As project groups go, Kep1er was meant to burn fast and be disposable. 

But “Kep1going On” and its follow up, “TIPI-TAP”, sound like a group who has finally found their place in the industry. There is a confidence in the music that has never been there before, as well as a willingness to take risks. The songs range from lush pop-synth productions (“Bitter Taste”, “Heart Surf”) to uptempo house music (“TIPI-TAP”). Like “Keep1going On”, this EP doesn’t set out to follow the trends in K-Pop. Instead, it aligns with the bright sounds of second or third generation K-pop. This was a direction I wanted the group to take when I saw them perform at KCON LA in 2023. That year, groups paid tribute to iconic groups by performing covers of some of K-Pop’s most popular songs. Kep1er’s set featured a performance of Girls Generation’s “Mr. Mr.”, a song so divinely engineered by the K-Pop gods that it seemed perfectly fit for a group like Kep1er. 

Listen closely to “TIPI-TAP” and you might hear the influence, too, of LOONA, who created an entire universe of intergalactic pop. When the music gets deliciously weird, as it does in the title track or on “Heart Surf”, you begin to wonder if an auteur like Grimes could produce the same magic she created for LOONA in 2018.

“TIPI-TAP” ranks as one of Kep1er’s best title tracks, next to “Shooting Star”, which was released in June. “Can’t stop my crush on you/ The code is L-O-V-E,” they sing in the chorus as if they have the most irresistible secret to tell you. Where previous Kep1er title tracks could assault you with its production, “TIPI-TAP” takes a nuanced approach. It flourishes and unwinds with synths that build to a wonderfully strange chorus. The song’s music video, released on the same day of the album, attempts to heighten Kep1er’s new image: The video does not take place in any real world, so much as Kep1er’s dreamworld. The girls perform in colorful scenes that look like legos or play-sets. They hang from ladders descending from the sky and ride on plush dinosaurs. The goal is not for any sort of storyline, but rather to highlight that Kep1er is now embracing the fun, absurd side of K-Pop.

I’m not as crazy about the EP’s opener “synch-love”, which mixes rap and singing to uneven results. Maybe this is because no member of Kep1er is a skillful rapper. The opening verse, delivered with a cartoonish whine by Hikaru, is cringe-inducing. Yet where WAKEONE gets it right is in the production. Like “TIPI-TAP”, “synch-love” is elevated by music that plays with your ears and takes unexpected pivots. I find this production more interesting throughout  the EP than its lyrics, which don’t reflect any sort of interior world of Kep1er. Instead, the lyrics support a whimsical aesthetic, one that portrays the girls as hopeless romantics; as schoolgirls looking for love and waiting to tell a crush how much they like him.

The girls’ swagger is best used on a b-side like “Drip”, a sultry track where the girls fantasize about heating up the tension with a lover. “Come on/ Let your body/ Drip, drip, drip,” they coax in the chorus that winks at naughtier ideas: “Deeper, then deeper/ Make you feel so high.”

Kep1er isn’t creating anything innovative or groundbreaking with “TIPI-TAP”. But as a reintroduction to a group that would have disbanded by now, it’s a solid effort. The group has defied the odds as a project group. I can only point to one other group, IZ*ONE, whose potential was wasted as a project group. Their music was so incendiary, so exemplary of what makes K-Pop stunning, that their short career still makes me bitter. Kep1er took longer to find their footing than IZ*ONE but they have potential to scale the same heights. 

For the EP’s remarkable second half, Kep1er’s potential comes into sharper view. The EP’s final two tracks, “Bitter Taste” and “Heart Surf”, provide a window into what could happen if WAKEONE dares to take more risks. The pair of songs are mid-tempo tracks that are surprisingly mature and confident. 

On this final stretch, Kep1er loses the sound of a group taking a big swing. As the music slows down and then begins to glide, the girls sing about second guessing themselves and trusting that their heart will take care of them. On “Heart Surf”, particularly, it’s a tender message. If previous Kep1er releases tried to blast the group into a new stratosphere of pop, “TIPI-TAP” is impressively more relaxed. The girls seem at ease here, content in the knowledge that they rightfully earned this extension and that we, in turn, can now learn more about them.