After taking a look at K-pop’s biggest agencies, I’d like to turn my attention to the smaller (but still important) players in the K-pop game, three at a time.
Disclaimer: As with my write-ups on K-Pop’s biggest agencies, this is written from an outsider’s perspective. I’m not privy to any business-related financial information beyond what any other fan would know. The purpose of these articles is to examine how well these agencies are serving their artists and the general K-pop fan-base.
THE BLACK LABEL
This is the first year I’ve included The Black Label as their own entity in this feature, and for good reason. They’ve had quite a 2025. First off, the debut of ALLDAY PROJECT went better than anyone could have expected, with their first single Famous standing as one of the year’s biggest chart hits. There’s certainly been some controversy around them, but that only seems to increase the public’s interest. And smartly, the agency has given the group a quick comeback with a new mini album just around the corner.
MEOVV’s discography has developed nicely this year. I can’t say I completely vibed with their debut, but I’ve enjoyed all their comebacks in 2025 and the group seems to be steadily gaining popularity. The Black Label’s international prospects are also strong, with BLACKPINK’s Rosé continuing to be a marquee star around the world despite releasing very little new music this year. APT continues to dominate charts over a year after its release.
Unfortunately, it still doesn’t seem like the agency knows what to do with Jeon Somi. She frequently gets their weakest material and comebacks are too infrequent.
A-
CUBE ENTERTAINMENT
Cube’s roster is as small as it’s even been, with only i-dle and NOWZ currently active. Funny enough, both groups went through a re-brand this year.
I-dle continue to be incredibly popular, though 2025 didn’t feel like a watershed year for them. They’re still in the million-sellers club with their latest mini album, yet its promoted songs didn’t burn up the charts the way they usually do. Instead, most of the members spent their year engaged in solo projects. These all sold relatively well, but didn’t feel like a vital part of the K-pop conversation.
Cube was very smart to re-brand Nowadays after a less-than-stunning debut year. For me, 2025 felt like their true debut with a noticeable rise in quality and much stronger sales. I went from being completely disinterested to a devoted fan, and that’s not easy to do. It just goes to show that if you invest in quality music you’ll inspire a larger fanbase.
B-
FNC ENTERTAINMENT
With each passing year, FNC Entertainment is reclaiming their roots as an agency that caters primarily to rock bands. Another new one (AxMxP) debuted this year, joining FTIsland, CNBLUE and N.Flying on FNC’s roster. These bands generally make infrequent comebacks and none made many waves in 2025. AxMxP seem promising, but we’ll see if they can differentiate themselves from their agency seniors.
On the dance pop / hip-hop side of things, P1Harmony continued to chug along as the agency’s most popular act of the moment. I found their 2025 output pretty lackluster (and sometimes downright bad), but they’re clearly connecting with fans. Their English-language album seemed to come and go with no fanfare, though.
Meanwhile, SF9 barely promoted this year and the agency still has no idea what to do with AMPERS&ONE, giving them the most generic boy group material possible. Their sales are growing a bit, though.
