The year 2024 left K-pop idol Lee Hyein, in a word, confused. In just months, she and her bandmates in NewJeans went from being one of the industry’s biggest-selling acts to a group of renegade artists in a controversial dispute with the label they abruptly left.“Some people would conveniently switch their perspective, treating me as a kid when it suited them and then expecting me to act like an adult when it was more convenient for them,” said Hyein, 16, through an interpreter during a video interview with TIME in early March. “It was really tough—definitely one of the hardest times for me.”Last November, Hyein, along with bandmates Minji (Kim Minji), Danielle (Danielle Marsh), Haerin (Kang Haerin), and Hanni (Phạm Ngọc Hân), unilaterally terminated their contract with former label and management company ADOR—a subsidiary of K-pop juggernaut HYBE, the firm behind BTS. It was a rare revolt that sent jitters across the South Korean entertainment industry, as the group’s members have accused their former label of “unfair treatment,” “discrimination,” and workplace harrassment—all of which ADOR has denied.To everyone’s surprise, in February, the members, who are all under 21, revealed they have taken on a different group name—NJZ—with a performance comeback set for March 23, at the ComplexCon festival in Hong Kong. Haerin says in Korean that nothing about the group has “fundamentally changed,” but in rebranding as NJZ, “we now have greater creative freedom and a broader artistic scope.”So ADOR filed an injunction at a Seoul court in January, first to bar the five from taking on new promotional activities without the management company, and then expanded that demand the following month, after the group’s rebranding, to include a ban on new music releases and international performances. Just days before their performance, the court granted the preliminary injunction. ADOR said in a statement that they are “fully committed” to supporting the five and will be present at th