K-pop group Lapillus chooses Philippines as first stop of international tour

MANILA, Philippines — The girls of the newly-launched South Korean idol group Lapillus laid out the reasons why they chose the Philippines for their first international appearance.

Dressed in black and white ensembles, they attended a press conference in Quezon City to talk more about the group and their music.

Lapillus was launched last June and is composed of Shana, 19, leader and lead vocalist; Chanty, 19, vocalist; Bessie, 18, main vocalist and rapper; Haeun, 13, lead rapper, vocalist and maknae; Yue, 18, main vocalist and dancer; and Seowon, 15, main rapper.

The all-female K-pop act is under MLD Entertainment, the same agency that formed Momoland and T1419.

Through an interpreter, Shana shared that the reason they came to the Philippines ahead of all other countries is because of their Filipino fans who have been supporting them from Day 1 and because of Chanty.

Chanty, short for Chantal Videla, is a Filipino-Argentinian artist who was part of the Star Circle Batch 2018 and has appeared in ABS-CBN shows such as Reawaken, Hiwaga ng Kambat and Starla, among others.

Shana shared, “She (Chanty) said the Philippines is a warm country and very energetic, too. You can really receive a lot of love from fans there. It’s really a great place. And so that’s also the reason why we came here to the Philippines.”

After the Philippines, they are also planning to go to the United States and Japan (Shana’s home country) to promote their music, said Haeun.

While in the country, they’re enjoying Filipino foods like champorado and ube.

“I had champorado since I arrived and I found it very delicious,” enthused Shana. “Chanty told me to have garlic rice for breakfast and I did. It was very, very good.”

Yue added, “Chanty introduced me to ube. Also, I heard from our fans because of my hair color before. I finally tried it and it was so good. I liked it.”

Chanty chimed in, “When we were in the hotel in the morning, these two younger girls — Yue and Seowon — wanted to swim in the swimming pool so that’s the first fun activity they did and we actually did.”

Moreover, Lapillus also had a “fun and unforgettable experience” filming the music video of their debut single Hit Ya!

“When we filmed the video, we actually used the green screen for a lot of the parts. It was actually our first time using a green screen. So we had to imagine what (our moves would) look like. We had to guess everything. It was pretty fun. That was an experience we couldn’t forget,” the Chinese-American Yue said.

As for Chanty, “One of the most memorable was waking up really early just to get our make-up done because there are like six members. So let’s say our call time was around 7 a.m. and we have to wake up at 3 to 2 a.m. We have like an hour ride to go to the location and so it’s like a lot of work just to do the music video. It was really fun though. It was an interesting and fun experience.”

The K-pop group will drop their mini-album called Gratata on Sept. 22. They will also hold a Fan Meet at Market! Market! on Sept. 10 and Sept. 11 at Ayala Fairview Terraces.

They haven’t decided on their fandom name yet but hopefully they will come up with something soon. “We’ve been really grateful to the fans for their ideas. Some of them are funny, some of them are really cute, some of them, ‘Oh it’s so smart, it’s so witty.’ We really liked it a lot,” said Chanty.

Shana concluded the program by thanking their fans and supporters. “Thank you very much for having us in the Philippines. It is a big pleasure to be here. (We) will keep working hard and keep promoting here as (much) as possible,” she said.