There is a particular kind of confidence that can only be earned, not assumed. It comes from going through something, truly going through it, and deciding to keep moving anyway. That is the confidence you feel in a room with GIRLSET. Camila, Lexi, Kendall, and Savanna carry it the way you carry something you had to fight to hold onto: quietly, without announcement, and without any intention of setting it down.
The four of them first entered the public eye through A2K, America2Korea, the 2023 reality competition produced jointly by JYP Entertainment and Republic Records with the singular goal of building the first American girl group trained within the rigorous architecture of the K-pop system. It was an audacious premise: take young women from across the United States, run them through one of the most demanding artistic development programs in the world, and see what emerged. What emerged, eventually, was VCHA, a six-member group whose name derived from the Korean word meaning “to shine upon.” They debuted in January 2024 with “Girls of the Year,” opened for TWICE on their Ready to Be World Tour across São Paulo, Mexico City, and Las Vegas, and landed a Teen Vogue cover story as part of the magazine’s Girl Group Week. By any measure, it was a remarkable start.
But the road that followed was anything but smooth including a member’s hiatus for health reasons, a departure, a lawsuit and an indefinite pause on group activities. By late 2024, VCHA existed in that difficult gray zone where a group’s future becomes genuinely unclear before it has ever reached its full potential. It would have been understandable, reasonable even, for the story to end there. Instead, on August 7, 2025, JYP Entertainment announced that the four remaining members would be starting over. New name. New era. New everything. The group that emerged from that reset was GIRLSET.
“GIRLSET is a new beginning that allows us to truly show our authentic-selves while still embracing our journey and the experiences that have shaped us,” the group says. “We’ve been on quite a journey and have grown and evolved as artists, especially through the rebrand. It means so much to us to have creative input and to be more involved in our music. Authenticity has always been a key part of our identity and our sound. We simply want to share ourselves with the world and connect with people through our music.”
That last part, creative input, is not incidental. It is the through line of everything GIRLSET talk about when they discuss this new chapter. The rebrand represented a genuine shift in how the members relate to the music they make, and a more direct hand in shaping what that music becomes. “Coming from different backgrounds is so beneficial for the team,” they explain, “as it gives everyone more room to work creatively. We know what works best for us, so it’s very important that we present concepts and themes that feel true to who we are.”
The name itself signals this shift. GIRLSET reflects a commitment to setting their own boundless path. In practice, that philosophy shows up in everything. “Everyday, whether we’re making music, performing, meeting fans, etc, we always make it a point to be 100% us and authentic in what we do,” they say. “That’s a big part of what our name reflects.” It is a simple enough statement, but the weight behind it is considerable given what it took to arrive here.
The first real proof of concept for this new direction came with “Commas,” the group’s re-debut single released in the summer of 2025. Then came “Little Miss” in November 2025, a track whose self-possession and intent signaled that GIRLSET had a clear creative direction and were not deviating from it. Within five days of release, the “Little Miss” music video surpassed ten million YouTube views, a milestone the group had never reached under their previous name.
Then, in January 2026, Missy Elliott appeared on a remix of “Little Miss.” Having Missy on a track is not a minor event in any universe. She is, by any reasonable reckoning, one of the most influential figures in the history of popular music, “Missy Elliott is a wonderful artist,” the group says. “Having her on ‘Little Miss’ was life-changing. She’s been in the industry for so long and has inspired so many people. With her addition to our song, she really emphasized her rawness and realness, and it was so refreshing to see and hear. That experience has truly inspired us to move in a way that shows the real us.” There is something about that particular lesson arriving from Missy Elliott, an artist who has never been anything other than entirely, irreducibly herself.
By the time “Tweak” arrived, GIRLSET had built enough momentum that expectations were genuinely high. The single, produced by JYP founder Park Jin Young alongside Grammy-winning producer Diego Ave, draws directly from SWV’s 1992 R&B classic “Weak,” flipping its melodic DNA into something that feels both reverently nostalgic and entirely contemporary. The music video hit 5.73 million views in its first twenty-four hours alone, making it the second-most viewed debut-day video ever for an English-speaking girl group. It topped YouTube’s music video trending charts in the United States and Canada on the morning of March 7.
The decision to interpolate “Weak” was deliberate and considered. “Like you said, ‘Weak’ is a classic, and we felt that the best way to step further into a Y2K/R&B realm was to incorporate it into the song,” the group says. “While doing that, we still wanted to make it feel like us by adding modern elements, both in the track and the lyrics.” There was a specific weight that came with reworking a song so beloved. “Honestly, we were super excited to have a touch of such an iconic girl group in our song,” they say. “They’ve paved the way for so many artists, including us, and having their essence in our song ‘Tweak’ was so cool to see. We flipped the song in our own way lyrically and added some GIRLSET elements to create a great blend. It was beautiful to see the final result!” The final product is less a cover and more a conversation across three decades, SWV’s vulnerability refracted through GIRLSET’s confidence, the message updated but the feeling intact.
Each of the four members brings something distinct to that collective energy. Camila, who grew up in a Cuban household with both parents as percussionists, came into this group having already performed live multiple times and with a deep fluency in R&B. “Since Tweak is heavily inspired by R&B music, which is a style of singing that I really enjoy and love interpreting, it made the process a lot easier and felt very familiar to me,” she says. She speaks with open excitement about the possibility of one day incorporating traditional Cuban instrumentation into the group’s music, “My parents were musicians, percussionists to be exact, and they played a lot of traditional Cuban instruments. It’s something that I’d love to incorporate into our music one day. I know a lot of people that look up to us would really appreciate it and it would bring back a lot of memories.”
Lexi, who ranked first among all A2K contestants and spent twelve years training in ballet before joining the group, talks about her role with a particular kind of groundedness. “I enjoy helping maintain balance within the group,” she says, “and that can mean many things, such as keeping everyone steady and grounded or creating a safe space where we can rely on one another.” Dance has been her primary artistic language since before she could articulate what that meant. “Dance being such a big part of what we do, having that background has been incredibly helpful,” she says. Expanding her artistry beyond dance has been its own journey, and she names her bandmates’ knowledge as essential to that growth: “Being able to expand my artistry with the help of my knowledgeable members has helped me tremendously.”
Kendall is the one who designed the group’s logo, the GS piercing heart, a process she describes in terms that say a great deal about how seriously she takes the idea of visual identity. “It’s very important in my eyes,” she says of shaping the group’s visual direction. “When I was designing our logo, I wanted to make sure that we felt connected to it and that it had meaning to us, not just some random image that looks cool. So to us the ‘GS piercing heart’ represents how we want to touch people’s hearts through the music we create.” Fans often describe her stage presence as calm but powerful, a reading she accepts on its own terms. “Calm and powerful represents an underlying confidence that isn’t moved by anyone’s opinions,” she says. “It’s knowing your abilities and trusting in your practice. As long as you have that you can channel great performances.”
Savanna, the youngest member, describes her pre-performance mindset in terms that suggest someone who has thought carefully about what it means to be fully present on stage. “I really make it a point to honestly just have fun, be free, and almost perform mindlessly,” she says. “When it’s time for a stage, there’s no point in worrying or second guessing yourself anymore. It’s about having trust in your practice, so you can let yourself be fully immersed in the performance. I want the fans to feel the energy and raw emotion as best as possible.”
Together, these four constitute something more than the sum of their individual backgrounds. The group’s diversity, Cuban, Hmong, Vietnamese, and Venezuelan-Trinbagonian heritage among them, is not incidental to their project. It is foundational. Their style functions as an extension of the same philosophy. “It’s powerful, bold, and fierce!” they say. They talk about fashion the way they talk about music: with genuine curiosity and a desire to experiment. “Exploring something more abstract and complex would be fun to see,” they say. “It’s a bit different from the norm, but that’s what makes it so intriguing.”
For a group that has been through what GIRLSET has been through, the fact that they can still be chaotic and laughing and free with each other is not nothing. It is, in fact, everything. The music is good, genuinely and increasingly good, but what gives it weight is the reality behind it: four young women who chose each other, who built something together under difficult circumstances, and who are now, finally, making the music they actually want to make.
Photographed by Roman Udalov
STYLIST: LISA SMITH CRAIG
ASSISTANT STYLIST: ESSENCE CARSON
HAIR: ANTONIO FERRER, XITLALY ALCAZAR
MAKE-UP: REGINALD RAPHAEL, CHRISTINA SPINA
NAILS: AMBER STUDER
SHOT AT: HOLLYWOOD VOLUME
PRODUCTION ASSISTANTS:
Denver Nelson
A version of this story appears in the Summer issue of Groovevolt.
