HYBE's Japanese Experiment Levels Up: &TEAM Return With a 6-Track Album 10 Months in the Making

&TEAM didn't ease back into the Korean market. Their second Korean mini-album, Mark on Me, dropped September 8 with a producer list that reads like someone called in every favor at once: HYBE chairman Bang Si-hyuk, American singer-songwriter Benson Boone, Grammy-winning producer Chizzy Stephens, and Griff Clawson, whose credits include work with BLACKPINK's Rosé and NCT.

The album arrives about 10 months after Back to Life, the group's Korean debut release from last October. Where that record was about breaking through instinct and rising from pain, Mark on Me takes the group's "wolf boy" narrative somewhere more intimate: a once-isolated wolf encountering someone who truly understands him, and the permanent mark that connection leaves. Six tracks, six different genre angles, all circling that central idea.

The title track and its team

The title track pairs piano melody against full orchestral swell in a pop structure built around restrained verses and an explosive chorus. Griff Clawson produced it, with songwriting contributions from Benson Boone, Micah Premnath, Joyoon Gyeong, ChaMane, Jvde, and danke. It's a lot of hands on one song, but the credited approach here is density, not experimentation.

What's on the rest of the album

"Good Boy" is the hip-hop cut, built on heavy 808 bass and produced by Johnny Goldstein. Bang Si-hyuk, Supreme Boi, Hiss noise, and Cortis all contributed, which makes it the most HYBE-internal track on the record.

"Lovejang" goes in a completely different direction: analog warmth reconstructed through synthesizers, evoking 1990s textures. It's co-produced by Soma Genda, a longtime &TEAM collaborator, and Park Moonchi, with additional work from dwilly, Wyatt Sanders, Yoon Da-hye, and Lulu.

"Accelerate" is the late-night R&B track, polished and rhythmically loose, with production from Grammy-winner Chizzy Stephens and Will Jay. "Empty" strips things back to guitar and rock ballad territory, produced by dwilly and 44phantom.

Closing the album is "Night to howl!", a pop-punk throwback with a sprawling credit list under Soma Genda's direction: Andy Love, the Nukadu brothers (André, Axel, and Adrien), Tanisha Jackson, Joyoon Gyeong, Isran, ChaMane, and Jvde. The number of contributors on a single closing track is either a flex or a statement about how seriously YX Labels is treating this project. Probably both.

Where the group goes next

&TEAM held a showcase at SBS Prism Tower in Seoul's Mapo district on September 8 to mark the release. They've already wrapped a solo concert at Belluna Dome in Japan, and on October 3 and 4 they'll close out their tour with encore shows at KSPO Dome in Olympic Park, Seoul.

Debuted in Japan in 2022, &TEAM was HYBE's first localized Japanese group, built with a mix of Korean and Japanese members. The Korean push is still relatively new, and Mark on Me is the clearest sign yet that YX Labels is betting the group can move serious weight on both sides of the strait.