SPILL THE TEA · CONFIRMED UPDATE · KARD
Receipt image from The Korea Times interview. Shown with the reporting source.
KARD is leaving DSP Media. KARD is not necessarily leaving KARD. That distinction got buried under one dramatic company statement and several headlines that treated a contract ending like a group funeral.
What DSP said
On July 6, DSP Media announced that KARD would release its first full album, complete the NOW HERE world tour and then conclude the group’s journey under the agency. News outlets reasonably read that language as a disbandment announcement. It sounded final because DSP wrote it like a farewell.
The schedule is still real. KARD released Back To Life as part of Where To Now? (Part.2): NOWHERE, opened the Seoul concert chapter in August and planned international dates extending into 2027. This is the end of their current DSP arrangement, complete with an album and tour instead of a silent disappearance.
Then Jiwoo corrected the funeral notice
In a July 28 interview with Star News, Jiwoo said the statement meant KARD’s contract with DSP was ending. She specifically rejected the idea that the four members had decided to dissolve the group. Her description of the future was not vague either: the members plan to explore music in new environments and reunite for KARD albums again.
The Korea Times heard the same message from the full group. Jiwoo said the four still want to make music together, only in a new environment. That does not guarantee a comeback date, a new agency or an easy fight over schedules and name rights. It does mean the word disbandment is doing more work than the members asked it to do.
Their DSP contracts are ending. The current album and tour close this version of KARD’s career. The members still want to make KARD music together.
What is not confirmed
A new label, a reunion date, ownership of the KARD name or exactly how four separate careers will fit around future group releases.
RaeRae take
DSP dropped what looked like a funeral announcement. The members walked in three weeks later and said nobody died.
I still hate that KARD waited nearly ten years for a full album and received it with goodbye language stapled to the cover. But this is not the same story anymore. The tour is a farewell to an agency chapter. It is not proof that BM, J.Seph, Somin and Jiwoo are finished with one another.
That is messier than a clean ending, but I will happily take messy paperwork over a dead group. KARD survived an industry that barely knows what to do with co-ed acts. I am not burying them while all four members are still discussing the next room they might make music in.