It is currently one of the most popular female groups in the K-Pop scene. In 2015, they were considered “the hot group” in South Korea.
The girls used to live in the same house, sharing a room. Since the end of 2016, and because they missed each other so much when they each moved to different houses, they decided to reunite and currently they all live in the same building, just on different floors. They have confessed to assiduously visiting each other’s homes even in their pajamas.
LE is the official producer of the group together with Shinsadong Tiger.
Hani and Jeonghwa are EXID’s visual lineup. However, Hani has more recognition in the entertainment world as a visual.
Their role model is the K-Pop group Shinhwa, although they also greatly admire the music of the legendary King of Pop, Michael Jackson.
They are one of the few K-Pop groups that have had a re-entry into the charts.
The song “I Feel Good”, marked EXID’s change as a 5-member group.
“Every Night” is a remake of the song “Call” from the mini-album Hippity Hop, and both were written by LE.
“Every Night” managed to position itself in one of the highest positions in the charts in real time.
“Up&Down” initially only managed to rank 93rd, but three months later the song was climbing up the charts and managed to be number 1 on “Cyworld”, “MelOn” and “Instiz”, as well as entering the Top 5 of all the charts.
They gained a lot of recognition with their single “Up&Down”.
They started promoting “Up&Down” again two months after its release, becoming a success.
He managed to increase in popularity thanks to Hani’s fancams; including one that went viral and has already garnered more than 22 million views on YouTube.
In contrast to most female groups, EXID uses rap as the main verse, and not as something of a backing track, with LE’s rapping being the basis of their songs.
One of their recorded performances went viral, as the instrumental version (without background vocals) was played and they had to be forced to perform 100% live. There were many criticisms regarding the girls’ performance, such as congratulations to LE (for her cleverness in realizing that the song played was the instrumental version and starting rapping instantly) and Solji (for her amazing voice), as well as reprimands to Hani (for not singing well at all during the performance, the real cause being a glitch in her microphone) and Hyerin (for wanting to help her partner, abandoning part of the performance, and indicating that Hani’s microphone was not working properly).
“Ah Yeah” surpassed 1 million views on YouTube in just 27 hours.
They achieved their first victory with their song “Ah Yeah” in the program The Show and later obtained their second victory in the program Inkigayo.
Their company revealed that the promotions for the song “Ah Yeah” would end on May 24, 2015 with a final performance on the Inkigayo program, so that the group could take their due rest, as the EXID members had been working hard and energetically on their promotions since November 2014.
Shortly after finishing their promotions, the company announced that the EXID girls would return to work in August to prepare for their comeback three months later.
They lent their voices to an on-line video game called Sudden Atack.
According to the company that owns the ice cream brand “Goo Goo Ice Cream”, the EXID girls “are miraculous”. After the commercial they recorded, sales of the ice cream increased by 20%, generating profits of more than 4.5 million dollars; the company itself has confessed that this kind of increase in products that have been on the market for so many years is not normal.
The program “One Night of TV Entertainment” announced that EXIDwas the most searched K-Pop group on the internet the first half of 2015, surpassing Girls’ Generation, EXO and BIGBANG in searches; which has made many journalists and newspapers ask whether their popularity is really reaching far enough to unseat K-Pop groups that have been in the music world for many more years than them.
As every year since 2010, NAVER creates an open list for fans to vote and choose their favorite dances from female K-Pop groups; EXID’s “Up&Down” came in 2015 in fourth place with 8.0% (5,204) of the votes.
She was again the image of the sports brand Mizuno in its new ad. The five of them looked tired after working out so hard. In the commercial, however, what’s really important are some peculiar posters that were displayed in one of Jeonghwa’s scenes in a gym where you can easily read: “EXID COMEBACK 2015.11”, which again confirmed that in mid-November EXID would be making a comeback with a new single composed by LE and Shinsadong Tiger; later the new mini-album would be released.
Hani and Solji said they expected their song to reach #7 or #6 on the digital music charts, however, 10 hours after “Hot Pink” was released, it surpassed their expectations, reaching the top of the charts, ranking #1 on Monkey3, Genie, Soribada, Olleh and Bugs, #2 on Naver Music and Mnet and #4 on MelOn.
In less than 25 hours EXID’s music video “Hot Pink” reached more than one million views on YouTube, beating their previous record with the song “Ah Yeah”.
At the Céci Asia Star Awards, the group was ranked No. 3 on the list of “South Korea’s most popular female groups”, receiving second place Miss A and first place Girls’ Generation.
They won their first award with “Hot Pink” on November 25 on Show Champion, but have not been revealed the news until December 2, posting a photo of them next to the award on the music show’s Twitter.
She confessed in a radio interview that her biggest concern being idols is to stay cheerful and strong to give their best in their day to day life. They all try to cheer each other up when they haven’t slept well due to the group’s busy schedule or their mood is not the best.
It became one of the few K-Pop female groups that have managed in 3 consecutive comebacks to win the first place in various music programs in just one year. This had only been achieved in 1998 by S.E.S, 1999 by Fin.K.L, 2008 by Wonder Girls, 2010 by Girls’ Generation and 2010 by 2NE1, so in 2015 EXID joined the list. The most surprising thing is that, next to Fin.K.L, it has been the second group that has not been part of the big three K-Pop companies SM Entertainment, JYP Entertainment or YG Entertainment (news).
Despite the fact that “Hot Pink” has not been as popular as “Ah Yeah” and “Up&Down” it has managed to garner over 10 million views in less than a month and collect a total of 2 music program awards.
EXID were chosen by News Tomato as the third most successful K-Pop female group of 2015, behind Girls’ Generation and SISTAR, based on MelOn’s data within the TOP 100 from January to November and promotions done by the group.
It was the fourth female group of 2015 to have one of the most viewed music videos of the year, namely “Ah Yeah” with, by that date, 32,599,271 plays on YouTube.
It was the only female group to be included in the top 10 most played songs in South Korea in 2015 with “Up&Down.” With a total of 66.5 million plays, it ranked No. 8. The only other girl on the list was solo artist Baek Ah Yeon, ranking No. 2 with a total of 72.57 million plays.
Shinsadong Tiger and “Wellmade Yedang Entertainment” clarified that EXID is not going to leave their current company in South Korea, but they are planning to sign a contract with a Chinese company called Banana Project for their upcoming debut in China in 2016, even though they are going to prioritize their activities as a group in Korea. Officially they have already signed that contract.
All EXID members made it into the TOP 288 of MLBPark 2015 list, one of the most famous Korean male websites in South Korea. In the ranking Hani is ranked #4, Solji is ranked #7, Jeonghwa is ranked #43, Hyerin is ranked #193 and LE is ranked #244.
It was one of the 20 K-Pop groups that participated in the survival program The Boss is Watching.
“Up&Down” ranked first on the TOP 50 of “Gaon Digital Weekly Chart” by staying at the top spot for 26 consecutive weeks in 2015, beating Naul (23 weeks), Big Bang (20 weeks) and Baek Ah Yeon (20 weeks).
It had its first fan-meeting in China on March 13, 2016, confirmed by the company Banana Project.
On January 25, 2016, after a video of “Every Night” was posted on Facebook by a famous Korean website, the song once again gained attention and was number 1 in MelOn searches. The video turned out to be a fancam of Solji dancing to “Every Night,” which in less than a day received over 800,000 views.
They were the only female group to win two gold medals (archery and wrestling) at Idol Star Athletic Championship and their achievements surprised Korean netizens, making them appear on the TOP of all searches.
On February 14, 2016, for Valentine’s Day, EXID decided to have their first mini-concert in appreciation to LEGGOs for the constant support and as a celebration of their 4th anniversary as a band, an event that took place on February 16.
On March 2, the company revealed that because Banana Culture plans to debut upcoming sub-units, DASONI will be known as Solji&Hani. “Only One” was not promoted in music shows.
On March 2, news also came out that Yedang Entertainment changed its name to Banana Culture, surprising many because of the strangeness and peculiarity of the name. This is because they have given the original name of the company to the family of the deceased CEO.
Despite China’s restriction on banning hallyu due to diplomatic conflicts between Korea and China, EXID and T-ARA are the only K-Pop groups that are licensed to promote freely in China, as both groups belong to the Chinese agency Banana Culture Music.
He recorded his first web movie called “Idol”. On July 28th on Panda TV, it was announced that the director of Banana Project (EXID’s company in China), has created a new company called Banana Movie and EXID will be the main character of one of his first movies, as this company has just started in the movie world. All EXID members will participate and Hani will be the main character, playing 2 different characters. The movie will be filmed in South Korea.
On September 11, the “LEGGO Party” took place. The first opening ceremony of the LEGGO fandom and the director of Banana Culture has already commented on his Instagram account that the next EXID event will be a concert.
It had its debut in China on December 20, 2016 with the single “Cream”.
The group received a great reception from the Chinese public on their debut and reached the TOP of all charts.
Following Solji’s delicate health when she was diagnosed with hypothyroidism at the end of 2016, EXID’s January 2017 comeback was postponed to the first half of the year.
On January 10, 2017, EXID’s second Chinese single, the Chinese version of “Up&Down”, was released and received a great reception from the Chinese public.
On February 3, 2017, EXID appeared at a promotional event for the “LEGO: Batman Movie.”
EXID were invited for the first time by MNET to one of the famous KCON concerts that are held in different parts of the world. EXID is the only female artist invited to the Mexico concert on March 17, along with BTS, Eric Nam and NCT 127.
For the first time, EXID made a comeback on April 10, 2017 without one of the members, Solji, due to her health. She will rejoin her teammates once she is fully recovered.
Explaining the title of their new album without Solji, they said they decided to call it “Eclipse” because the moon is covered and there are only four members, once the eclipse disappears (Solji recovers), the group will return with its full five members, like a full moon.
They were unable to beat the previous record of one million views in 17 hours as the agency reported that the video was removed due to a YouTube error and re-uploaded hours later.
They were invited to the “Korean Festival 2017” in London, with Hani being the MC of the event along with two other presenters.
He broke a record for the first time ever, which was to sell out the tickets of his “EXID Asian Tour In Seoul” in less than forty seconds right at the time of selling the tickets. This surprised both the company and the fans.
Solji had a special appearance at ‘EXID Asian Tour In Seoul 2017’, right in the middle of performing ‘Like The Seasons’, where the lights went off and she appeared in the audience. The rest of the girls got excited and cried when they saw her, as it turned out to be a surprise for them. Moreover, Solji appeared as a celebration of their fifth anniversary as a five-member group. It is not yet officially confirmed that she is back in EXID’s activities.
On September 4, 2017, the EXID company revealed the official color of the group after five years since its debut. They are three pastel shades: a yellow, a pink and a blue; which when grouped together are named: ECLIPSE.
Billboard rated the ECLIPSEalbum reaching the number 4 spot worldwide in April 2017.
It will return as a full five-piece group after Solji’s hiatus with its fourth mini-album on November 7, 2017.
It will release its first major project in 2018. Known as “RE:flower”, every month until August (the month when Solji and Hyerin debuted and formed the current version of the group), the company will release a remastered version of one of the songs from their albums, so they will give a chance for some of their music to be able to be better known.
Solji will not participate in the first comeback of 2018 due to the fact that he is still recovering from the operation he underwent in January to reduce the inflammation in his eyes, a side effect of his hypothyroidism, which is now under control.
After three years since their last reality show, EXID held their second reality show through both Vietnamese and Korean mediums with “Made In EXID” in 2018, a program that in addition to showing their vacation in Vietnam also shows the girls’ hobbies and daily routine, while the members themselves are in charge of much of the preparation, recording, production and editing of the show.
On January 12, 2020, their music video “Up & Down” reached 100 million views on YouTube, becoming the group’s first video to reach that number of views.
