By Israa Mohamed
Video = Time's official YouTube channel

The K-pop girl group NewJeans on May 23 was named to the American magazine Time's Next Generation Leaders list this year.

NewJeans is the lone K-pop act to make the list.

For inclusion on its annual Next Generation Leaders list, Time selects global trend leaders and trailblazers.

"NewJeans is taking K-pop -- and the world -- by storm," the magazine said, adding that the first girl group launched by Ador, a subsidiary of Hybe, the management agency of BTS, "has already reached global milestones even faster than its more senior counterparts in the industry." 

Time focused on NewJeans' outstanding accomplishments despite its low volume of material, calling the group "the fastest Korean act ever to hit 1 billion streams on Spotify in just 219 days, despite having released only a handful of songs."

It added that NewJeans' songs "OMG" and "Ditto" this year each stayed on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart for five weeks.

In an interview with Time, group member Danielle said "it's such a pleasure and I can't imagine us doing anything else, to be honest." 

Fellow member Hanni said, "For us to be a part of K-pop in this day and age, we're very lucky because it's been really growing and blowing up a lot internationally as well and getting a lot of attention and recognition."

"K-pop is such a big thing," she added. "I don't know if you could really even predict what it's going to be in the future."

"They're focused on enjoying the process and just making music that they want to hear," the article said. 

ess8@korea.kr