MAMAMOO Talks Debut, Baek Ji Young and ′Mr. Ambiguous′ 

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[Exclusive Interview Pt. I] MAMAMOO Talks Debut, Baek Ji Young and ′Mr. Ambiguous′

social network exposure ( likes , tweets , etc. )

MAMAMOO debuted just a few weeks ago, but already, everyone has been asking, “Who is this group?”

While a good portion of the hype can be accredited to the slew of cameos in MAMAMOO’s debut music video for

Mr. Ambiguous (CN BLUE’s Lee Jong Hyun, K.Will, Baek Ji Young, to name just a few), the fact that the interest has only continued to rise can only indicate good things.

MAMAMOO, a four-girl group including members Moon Byul, Solar, Whee In and Wha Sa, is already different, thanks to the fact that they all have a set of pipes on them, can all dance, and have the support of some of the biggest names in the business.

The four ladies of MAMAMOO sat with Mwave for an exclusive interview prior to their

, where they talked about their star connections, ambiguous men and their music.

Mwave: You guys have an interesting group name name - so what does MAMAMOO exactly mean?

Solar: So MAMAMOO is similar to a baby’s cry and the word “MAMA” is used all around the world so we wanted our music to be something that could be received as sort of a natural instinct to people.

Mwave: And you all also have interesting individual stage names - any stories behind the names?

Moon Byul: Moon Byul is actually my real name. My full name is Moon Byul In so I took out the first two syllables of my names for my stage name. My actual name is kind of interesting anyway, since it’s basically “MOON STAR” so I said I would use my real name.

Solar: It’s a stage name, and initially I thought of using the stage name Doremi, but our CEO thought about it and he was like, ‘I think Doremi isn’t quite right...’, and since I’m in charge of the high parts, I went up the scale a little and ended up with Solar (so-la)

Whee In: Mine is my real name too. Since my real name isn’t very common , the producers said that Whee In would be good

Wha Sa: My real name is An Hye Jin and Hye Jin is pretty common, and so even though I like my real name, in terms of individuality, it wasn’t something I wanted to use for my stage name. So with Wha Sa - people say, ‘Oh that’s ‘wha sa’ (bright)’, but they don’t really use adjectives for names. Like, they might say, ‘She’s neung-chung (sly),’ but they wouldn’t name someone ‘Neung Chung’. But even though the word Wha Sa is a little unfamiliar, I still liked it. So I told my CEO that I wanted to use Wha Sa and even though he kept saying it was weird, I said, “No, I want to use Wha Sa!”

Mwave: You guys also had a lot of interest because of all the cameos in your music video for Mr. Ambiguous. How did you manage to score such big stars?

Solar: Well with Wheesung sunbaenim and K.Will sunbaenim, we worked on ‘Some Guy, Some Girl (Peppermint Chocolate)’ and so they ended up helping us with our music video for our title track, ‘Mr. Ambiguous’. With Bumkey sunbaenim, we also worked with him for ‘Don’t Be Happy’, so he helped us out again. With Baek Ji Young sunbaenim, she’s known our CEO for a long time, since he produced her song, ‘Don’t Forget’. So since they’re really close, she came out to support us.

Mwave: Was the hidden camera event in the music video for Mr. Ambiguous real?

All: YES. So real. People kept thinking it was fake but it was so real!

Whee In: We didn’t even know they were filming! We were the only ones that didn’t know about it

Moon Byul: ALL of the staff knew about it - only us four had no idea

Whee In: Kim Do Hoon CEO came and told us that Baek Ji Young sunbaenim would be coming and he said that she’s really cool and that she’d probably treat us really well. So we were really excited and getting ready for her but as soon as she came, she didn’t even accept our greetings and just went straight past us.

Whee In: So we were like, Oh no, what do we do…And as soon as she came back the atmosphere was so bad…

Whee In: So we were all so nervous so we were stiff and we couldn’t do our best and then

Wha Sa: And the director was like, We’re just filming to get some cuts, so don’t worry about it and you can just lip sync. So we were like, ‘Oh really? Okay!’ So when sunbaenim told us to show us, we were just lip syncing. And her response was, “Why aren’t you singing live…”

Wha Sa: So inside, we were thinking, ‘But the director told us to do it this way...’

Whee In: So Baek Ji Young sunbaenim told us to do it again, live, so we did it a few times while she was taking all these notes and then! It was the moment, and she said, “Oh...Do Hoon oppa said it was a group he raised, but I’m really disappointed.”

Whee In: So at THOSE words we were just all “AHHHHH” and just so shocked. And we were all holding in our tears , but right at that moment, the director said, “Solar...Baek Ji Young is good at acting huh?”

Moon Byul: Apparently, that was supposed to be the last word for the hidden camera

Solar: The last word was supposed to be “Solar” and so when I first heard that, I was thinking, ‘Why is the director pointing me out...’

Whee In: So for 5 minutes we were trying to figure out what was going on and then

Solar: And then the tears came out!! Because we were so happy, so the tears just came out.

Solar: But to give more behind the story, originally, they were supposed to keep going. So after she said “Solar”, she was supposed to single me out and ask why I was so bad . But then it ended up finishing before that.

Moon Byul: Ah yea, after it was all over she said a lot of good things, that we were doing well and she was really sorry

Whee In: That we should continue lip syncing haha

Solar: She gave a lot of support and a lot of good advice as a senior in the industry, sharing what kind of expressions we should do,

Moon Byul: When we went to the music show for our debut, we ran into Baek Ji Young sunbaenim there, and she greeted us so enthusiastically, and was giving us so much encouragement, telling us to do well and it just gave us so much strength. So sunbaenim’s encouragement was really good.

Read PART II of our exclusive 3-part Q&A with MAMAMOO here

Click to see more exclusive goodies on MAMAMOO on our special Rookie Page here!

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