Why Jung Eun-ji's New Solo Album Took Six Years to Arrive

On August 11, Jung Eun-ji released “Summer, I”, her fifth solo mini-album. It is her first EP in just over six years, since “Simple” in July 2020, and her first solo release of any kind in three years and nine months.

She produced the record herself and brought in three respected songwriters — 10cm, Jeokjae, and So Su-bin — as collaborators. The rollout continues through September, with a performance at the all-female showcase “HER VOICE” in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, on September 5, alongside (G)I-DLE's Miyeon and three Taiwanese artists, followed by a two-night solo concert in Seoul on September 12 and 13.

A six-year gap, precisely measured

The “six years” figure needs a caveat international coverage often skips. Jung Eun-ji did not vanish from music between 2020 and 2026 — she released a remake album, “log,” in November 2022. What ended in 2020 was specifically her run of original mini-albums, the format she returns to now.

That distinction matters because it points to what actually slowed down: not her voice, but her release calendar. And that calendar is set by a contract, not by inspiration.

One name, five separate contracts

Apink debuted in 2011 as a five-member act signed to a single company. By 2026, the group still performs together, but its five members answer to two different agencies with no shared parent company.

• Jung Eun-ji — signed with Billions in May 2025
• Park Cho-rong, Yoon Bo-mi, Kim Nam-joo, Oh Ha-young — managed by WithUs Entertainment since June 2025

Nothing like a group breakup happened. Apink released a full-group 15th-anniversary mini-album in January 2026 and toured together after that. But each member's solo schedule — including when Jung Eun-ji could release an album — now depends on a company that has no obligation to coordinate with the other one.

The Korean idol contract, explained

In Korean entertainment, an exclusive contract (전속계약) is signed individually, between one artist and one agency — not between a group and a company. A girl group is, legally, a bundle of separate individual contracts that happen to expire, or not expire, at different times.

Since a 2009 Fair Trade Commission reform aimed at ending abusive “slave contracts,” Korean regulators have capped the standard first term of an idol contract at seven years, though artists can renew afterward. Apink's four departing members stayed with their original agency for 12 years before leaving in 2023; Jung Eun-ji stayed 14. Both had already renewed at least once past the standard cap.

This is a structural difference from how a Western band typically works, where one label deal usually covers every member at once. In K-pop, a “group” surviving past its members' individual contracts is common enough to have its own term — fans and outlets call it promoting “together but separately.”

Why 2023 only half-broke up the roster

Apink's original agency has changed names four times since 2011 — A Cube Entertainment, then Plan A, then Play M, then IST Entertainment after a 2021 merger — but it stayed the same company through all of it, and Apink stayed its longest-running act.

On April 28, 2023, IST announced that Cho-rong, Bo-mi, Nam-joo, and Ha-young would not renew their contracts after 12 years. Jung Eun-ji, alone among the five, signed a new deal with IST that same week.

The four who left signed with Choi Creative Lab, a company then new to K-pop management, and the arrangement worked because IST kept functioning as the group's coordinating hub — Jung Eun-ji's presence there gave Apink a single home base even after most of the lineup had moved on.

The year Jung Eun-ji finally left, too

That arrangement lasted two years. On May 2, 2025, Jung Eun-ji ended her own contract with IST, closing out 14 years with the only agency she had ever known, and signed with Billions.

Five weeks later, on June 10, 2025, WithUs Entertainment took over management of the other four members from Choi Creative Lab. For the first time since 2011, no single company had a direct contractual line to more than one member of Apink.

What she did instead of releasing solo music

The gap between mini-albums was not a gap in output. Jung Eun-ji built a second career as an actress during exactly the years fans were waiting for new music.

• 2021 — lead role in tvN's “Work Later, Drink Now”
• 2022 — lead role in “Blind”
• 2019–2022 — hosted KBS Cool FM's daily radio show “Jung Eun-ji's Gayo Gwangjang”
• 2024 — dual lead role in JTBC's “Miss Night and Day,” which closed its run above 11% nationwide ratings, unusually high for the network

That last performance earned her the top spot in a July 2024 brand reputation ranking of drama actors — recognition industry watchers described as freeing her from being typecast as a former “Reply 1997” idol-actress.

Producing her own record for the first time

Music did not stop entirely, either. In 2025, Jung Eun-ji released the digital single “Is It My Birthday Today?,” which she wrote and composed herself — a first credit of that kind for her.

“Summer, I” extends that shift. Billions has framed the album around her own creative direction rather than a label-assigned concept, with Jung Eun-ji leading production and choosing collaborators like 10cm and Jeokjae herself. A new agency, with no back catalog of its own to manage, gave her more room to set that agenda than a 14-year-old contract with a multi-artist label likely would have.

The group came back before the soloist did

Sequencing tells its own story. Apink's full-group 15th-anniversary mini-album, “Re : Love,” came out January 5, 2026 — the group's first complete comeback in nearly three years. A two-night anniversary concert followed in February, and a digital single, “15th Season,” arrived in April.

Only after that cycle wrapped did Jung Eun-ji's solo album follow, in August. With two agencies now negotiating scheduling separately, the group's flagship 15th-anniversary campaign appears to have taken priority over any single member's solo timeline — including her own.

Her groupmates are living the same split

Jung Eun-ji is not the only member whose individual schedule now runs through a separate company. In 2026, all four of her groupmates have pursued solo projects timed and greenlit by WithUs rather than by Billions.

• Park Cho-rong — season two of the variety show “Advertisement Agency: CHICHI”
• Yoon Bo-mi — hosting the dating spin-off “I Am Solo: Love Forever”
• Kim Nam-joo — a featured vocal credit on Taiwanese singer Mavis's “Martini”
• Oh Ha-young — launched a personal YouTube channel, “Official Hayoung”

None of that required Billions' sign-off, just as Jung Eun-ji's album did not require WithUs's. The two companies only need to agree when Apink itself — the five-person brand — is the one releasing something.

What holds five separate contracts together

What is unresolved is how durable this is. Apink's continuity now runs entirely on inter-agency cooperation between Billions and WithUs, with no company holding a formal stake in the group as a whole — a structure neither agency's public statements have fully spelled out.

Both sides have said Apink will keep promoting together, and the 2026 comeback backed that up. But the arrangement depends on two separate companies continuing to agree, year after year, on shared branding and scheduling for a group neither of them fully owns.

How the Apink split unfolded

Frequently asked

Why did it take Jung Eun-ji six years to release a new album?

Her release schedule is set by her agency contract, not by output — she stayed with IST for 14 years before leaving for Billions in May 2025, and the new deal reset what she could release and when.

Are Apink members still together in 2026?

Yes — despite splitting between two separate agencies, Billions and WithUs Entertainment, Apink released a full-group 15th-anniversary album in January 2026 and continued touring together.

Who produced Jung Eun-ji's Summer, I album?

Jung Eun-ji produced the album herself for the first time, bringing in songwriters 10cm, Jeokjae, and So Su-bin as collaborators.