By Hasan Beyaz
We meet &TEAM on a bright winter’s morning in Tokyo, the kind where the cold feels crisp rather than biting, and the city seems unusually generous with light. It’s a fitting backdrop for a group who, over the past year, have been steadily stepping out of the margins and into wider view. With their first Korean mini-album Back to Life, &TEAM didn’t just test the waters of a new market – they surged straight through them, becoming million-sellers on day one and marking a new chapter in a career defined by movement across borders.
Formed under YX LABELS, &TEAM’s story has always been one of transition. Debuting in Japan, training across systems, and carrying a mix of cultural and linguistic backgrounds within the group itself, their identity has never been fixed to a single place. Back to Life sharpens that sense of fluidity. It’s their first full Korean release, not a translation exercise or a soft introduction, but a statement that positions them as a group comfortable operating between spaces, rather than choosing just one.
That confidence is reflected not only in the numbers, but in how they talk about the process. There’s little sense of overnight success in their reflections. Instead, they describe preparation shaped by limited time, heightened detail, and an increased reliance on one another. Songs like the title track demand precision and physical intensity, while ballads such as “Heartbreak Time Machine” strip things back entirely, placing emotional weight on vocals and presence alone. Across the record, their emphasis is on understanding when to push, when to hold back, and how to serve the song in front of them.
Promotion in Korea has also reframed how &TEAM see themselves in real time. Music show stages, chart placements, and a growing crossover audience have made their global ambitions feel tangible rather than theoretical. Moments of visibility now arrive not only in arenas or on screens, but in the background of everyday life – a song playing in a convenience store, or unexpectedly echoing through a shopping mall halfway across Asia. These small, almost surreal encounters seem to matter as much as the headline achievements, grounding their success in lived experience rather than abstraction.
Throughout the conversation, one theme returns consistently: unity. Not as a slogan, but as a working principle. The members speak about differences – in background, in training, in personal focus – as something that shows up in subtle ways, whether in movement, expression, or vocal delivery. Rather than sanding those edges down, &TEAM let them coexist, shaping performances that feel collective without being uniform.
As Back to Life continues to ripple outward, the group are already looking ahead, toward audiences they haven’t met yet and possibilities that extend beyond language or geography. For &TEAM, the idea of “going global” isn’t a finish line.
It’s an ongoing process – one that, for now, finds them very much in motion, standing at an intersection and choosing not to stand still.
