{"id":491532,"date":"2026-06-09T23:47:14","date_gmt":"2026-06-09T23:47:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/491532\/"},"modified":"2026-06-09T23:47:14","modified_gmt":"2026-06-09T23:47:14","slug":"republic-collective-wakeone-set-partnership-for-izna-alpha-drive-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/491532\/","title":{"rendered":"REPUBLIC Collective, WAKEONE Set Partnership for izna, ALPHA DRIVE ONE"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tALPHA DRIVE ONE and izna were both built by fans, backed by one of Korea\u2019s strongest cultural conglomerates and now two of K-pop\u2019s most-watched acts have a major U.S. partner.<\/p>\n

\n\tBillboard can exclusively report that South Korean label WAKEONE has entered a strategic partnership with REPUBLIC Collective, the Universal Music Group division that has led three of Billboard\u2018s year-end <\/a>label charts for the past five years: Top Labels<\/a>, Billboard 200 Labels<\/a> and Hot 100 Labels<\/a>. Officially announced Tuesday (June 9), the deal will see REPUBLIC support WAKEONE\u2019s girl group izna and the recently debuted boy band ALPHA DRIVE ONE for the acts\u2019 global expansion including album promotion and distribution.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tRelated\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"From<\/p>\n

\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\tBoth izna and ALPHA DRIVE ONE were assembled in real-time by international K-pop fan voters: izna through the 2024 survival singing competition show I-Land 2 \u2014 where fans across a reported 217 countries and regions voted for the final girl group lineup \u2014 and ALPHA DRIVE ONE (also known as ALD1) on Boys II Planet, which reportedly drew more than 26 million votes across 223 countries and regions to decide the eight-member lineup last fall.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe partnership brings the buzzy K-pop acts to a heavyweight Western distributor with a direct line to several of the scene\u2019s most recent crossover moments with nearly a dozen No. 1 albums on the Billboard 200<\/a> (including chart-toppers from TWICE<\/a>, Tomorrow X Together<\/a>, and eight from Stray Kids<\/a>) and acting as a label home for the KPop Demon Hunters soundtrack, the juggernaut LP whose single \u201cGolden\u201d topped the Billboard Hot 100<\/a> and won both a Grammy and an Academy Award this year.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Demon Hunter magic could continue with izna, whose music is produced by Teddy \u2014 the longtime hitmaker who has worked with BLACKPINK<\/a> and PSY<\/a> \u2014 who snagged a Grammy and an Oscar for his work on \u201cGolden.\u201d Teddy and his go-to creative collaborators like IDO and Kush \u2014 the same names behind several KPop Demon Hunters tracks \u2014 work across izna\u2019s music, including their EP Set the Tempo and new single \u201cMETRONOME\u201d (below) released Monday (June 8) as the first release under the REPUBLIC\/WAKONE alliance.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"ALPHA<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tALPHA DRIVE ONE<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy of WAKEONE<\/p>\n

\n\tDebuting just days into 2026, ALPHA DRIVE ONE saw their debut album, EUPHORIA, move a reported 1.1 million<\/a> physical copies globally on its Jan. 12 release day. The ALD1 boys followed up with new single \u201cOMG!\u201d released at the end of last month, and its video has already earned more than 61 million views on YouTube<\/a> in less than two weeks.<\/p>\n

\n\tBoth groups are represented by WAKEONE, a label under CJ ENM \u2014 the entertainment and media arm of conglomerate CJ Group behind the massive K-pop festival KCON, the highly watched MAMA Awards, and popular Korean cable channel Mnet, which produced both groups\u2019 respective competition series. While CJ and WAKEONE have been comparatively slow to formalize a larger Western label partnership, their boy band ZEROBASEONE<\/a> \u2014 created on the original season of Boys Planet in 2023 \u2014 eventually secured distribution through Virgin Music Group and has since notched two Top 30 entries on the Billboard 200 to date with a new EP, Ascend-, set for a physical release in the U.S. on June 26.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ALPHA DRIVE ONE and izna were both built by fans, backed by one of Korea\u2019s strongest cultural conglomerates…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":491533,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[72,93,6246,61,60,6521,278,43,641,192344],"class_list":["post-491532","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-business","tag-entertainment","tag-global","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-k-pop","tag-music","tag-news","tag-pop","tag-record-labels"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/491532","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=491532"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/491532\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/491533"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=491532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=491532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=491532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}