(G)I-DLE Released First English Album to ‘Be More Connected’ to U.S. Fans: ‘It’s About Time to Give Back’

(G)I-DLE‘s latest EP, Heat, marks a major milestone for the K-pop group. After releasing multiple mini albums in Korean and Japanese, the girl group has recorded all the songs on Heat entirely in English as a way of giving back to their fans in the United States, the group shares in the latest episode of Billboard News.

“It’s our debut EP in the U.S. so we’re super excited about this, and we just wrapped up our U.S. tour. Our fans have been so supportive, we think that it’s about time to give back and be more connected to them so we came up with this album Heat,” Minnie explained to host Tetris Kelly. “We hope they can like it … We had so much fun working on it. We’re quite nervous because its our first English [album] and we all recorded fully recorded in English so its quite challenging.”

Yuqi gushed about the new project, which includes the high-energy lead single “I Want That,” and said that the songs are a departure from what devoted fans can typically expect of their sound. “All the songs, you guys can have my word, it’s really, totally different styles we have never tried,” she said. “I think it’s gonna be cool. I hope our fans can love it.”

Earlier in the year, (G)I-DLE went viral online with their May single “Queencard” for its self-empowerment themes, as well as its reference to the dance-off scene in the 2004 film White Chicks in its music video.

“The director specifically wanted to put a comedic reference in there, so we were looking at iconic movies, and White Chicks was definitely one of them, and we’ve decided to reference that in the music video,” Soyeon recalled of the decision for the video’s dance section. “I’m really happy that people really love that part of it.”

Watch (G)I-DLE’s full interview with Billboard News in the video above.