On the evening of September 8, the second day of the Korean music awards ceremony - The Fact Music Awards (TMA) 2024 was held at Kyocera Dome, Osaka (Japan).
The ceremony on September 8 featured performances by 9 groups, including ITZY, aespa, JO1, NewJeans, &TEAM, xikers, Kiss Off Life, NCT WISH and UNIS.
After the event, social media went viral with photos of two girl groups, NewJeans (including Minji, Hanni, Danielle, Haerin, Hyein) and aespa (including Karina, Giselle, Winter, NingNing) taking commemorative photos together.
These images went viral because aespa and NewJeans were often linked together in the dispute between former CEO Min Hee Jin of ADOR (NewJeans' management company) and HYBE Group.
Fans of the two groups have had many conflicts, but the relationship between the artists has not been affected.
In June, NewJeans and aespa made waves on social media when they collaborated on a dance challenge for aespa's "Armageddon" and NewJeans' "How Sweet".
At this year's The Fact Music Awards, aespa won the highest award Daesang (Grand Prize).
During their speech, aespa thanked fans for supporting the group, despite the members being unwell at times, and expressed gratitude that their hard work had paid off.
Notably, Karina revealed about the group's upcoming new song: “We would like to reveal a little bit about our upcoming song called “Whiplash”, although this has not been confirmed with the management company.
It's a fun and fresh song like 'Supernova'. We'll continue to work hard next year, so please look forward to it."
In addition, aespa won two other awards: Bonsang Artist of the Year and Listener's Choice.
The 7 artists who won the Bonsang Artist of the Year award besides aespa include TWS, NiziU, Kim Jae Joong, NewJeans, JO1 and ITZY.
NewJeans was also a big winner at this year's awards, with four categories. In addition to Artist of the Year, there were also Global Icon, World's Best Performer, and Musinsa Popularity Award.
