Gnarly? Gabriela? The viral GAP milkshake ad? HYBE x Geffen Records’ first global girl group, Katseye, has already taken over TikTok, broken attendance records with their Lollapalooza set, and won a VMA, despite making their debut just six months ago in June 2024. 

Loved for their unapologetic personalities and diverse cultural representation, all six members – Lara, Daniela, Yoonchae, Megan, Manon, and Sophia – were chosen from 20 competitors based on skill tests and fan popularity in a K-POP style survival reality show called Dream Academy. Off the back of Katseye’s huge success, the same company ( HYBE x Geffen ) have made an announcement of a brand new group with four members, three of whom have been confirmed to be ex-Dream Academy contestants: Emily Kelavos, Lexie Levin and Samara Siqueira. Here’s everything we know about Katseye’s brand-new little sister, ‘Prelude’.

What is Dream Academy?? 

Let’s start all the way back in 2021, when HYBE x Geffen Records announced a Global Girl Group Audition. 

The successful applicants were invited to LA and started an intensive training and development program using the ‘K-POP method’. The girls were ranked on a pyramid (Abby Lee Miller style) based on their singing and dancing skills, and later had to compete through live performances after the training program was revealed to be a reality show. The entire process was filmed and turned into a Netflix documentary, ‘Pop Star Academy: Katseye’, which some of the girls have spoken out against for failing to accurately portray the program's true intensity and for exaggerating narratives that favour drama. 

Despite scoring well and being liked by fans, Lexie Levin ( now a Prelude member!) actually made an early departure from Dream Academy on her own accord after a particularly heartless round of eliminations. The competitors were sitting in front of a computer screen and had to wait anxiously as it read out the names of members progressing to the next round and those being eliminated. The shocked and emotional competitors had to say their goodbyes right then and there. Brutal! 

Other members, Emily and Samara, finished in the top 10 and received high judges’ scores but lost out on their girl group dream due to a small margin of fan votes. After years of training and competing, the remaining Dream Academy girls were forced to either return home or pursue solo careers. This is because the ‘losers’ of K-POP survival show contests are usually dropped by the original company; hence, it was such a surprise to see a brand new HYBE group with the same old trainees. However, looking back now, there were actually clues all along. 

HYBE has been planning something…

In Round 3 of the live competition, Emily & Samara were put in a 4-person group with other contestants Ezrela and Ua to perform ‘Wannabe’ by the Spice Girls. During the shoot, HYBE Executive Producer Son Sung Deuk actually mentioned to the other directors how good the girls worked together and joked that they could just debut them ‘as they were’! Katseye also underwent a major concept shift from their first EP ‘Soft Is Strong’, which featured more cutesy/ girlpop songs, to a much more mature concept with their newest releases ‘Gnarly’ and ‘M.I.A’. These songs are not only much better-suited to Katseye, but I have a feeling this rebrand was a strategic attempt to distance the girls from HYBE’s upcoming 4-person group, which will cater to a younger target audience! Another K-pop company, JYP, also recently relaunched its own global girl group ‘Girlset’, and what better way to keep the attention on HYBE than to announce the creation of Prelude. 

Addressing the Samara Hate Train 

Back in August, a new Instagram account, followed by HYBE labels (@prelude_thefinalpiece), posted photos announcing the new group. Both Lexie and Emily received excitement and praise for the achievement, but Samara’s post was flooded with hate comments and death threats – all because of a TikTok video that she liked back in 2023. 

The video includes a tourist calling Indian street food dirty and overall portraying the country in a racist and xenophobic way. Promoting this racist content to her fans was a huge mistake on her part and is something that should’ve been acknowledged immediately, along with an apology. What many present haters still fail to understand is that her seemingly lack of remorse is actually completely beyond her control. 

When the controversy first emerged, Samara and members of her family confirmed that HYBE had actually stopped her from speaking out about the issue. Now that we know she was under contract the whole time between Dream Academy and the recent Prelude announcement, that restriction has made it impossible for her to remedy the situation, even after the show ended and has instead forced her to face the hate silently. Over this period of time, the hate intensified to some fans circulating edited screenshots of her posts to spread misinformation that she is also zionist, Islamophobic and part of an evangelical Christian cult?? 

Growing up in poverty in Brazil, Samara is one of the few Dream Academy girls who couldn’t afford the same extensive dance and singing training the others had been doing since they were kids. With Prelude, Samara was given a rare second chance to pursue her dream, and I think that is something the Samara-haters ought to be doing too. Time and time again, HYBE has shown us that they view drama as free publicity; yet, instead of this being condemned, it’s Samara who takes the hit. Not cool! 

On the other hand, one thing from fan feedback that I vehemently agree with is the absence of our very own Sydney-sider, Ezrela Abraham. Coming into the program with a lower skill set than the rest, Ezrela improved dramatically over the Dream Academy timeline and even made it to the live finale ( top 10 )! I adored watching her performances, especially with Emily and Samara in ‘Wannabe’, and her personality gelled well with the other girls. She also speaks both Korean and Japanese, which is extremely valuable for tours and interviews when she is part of a global girl group. It’s such a shame that she’s either been left out by the company or pulled herself out for other reasons (rumours suggest she’s now studying music production at the University of Sydney). HYBE, there’s still time to add her!

The Final Piece

So where’s our fourth member? Well, it hasn’t been decided yet… because it’s going to be picked by ANOTHER survival show. ‘Prelude: The Final Piece’ is an upcoming show with a live finale aimed at finding a Japanese pop trainee to join the other confirmed members of Prelude. Announcements have also been made that Sakura and Kazuha from HYBE K-pop group ‘Le Sserafim’ will be hosts for the show. 

So will our new group remain in Katseye’s shadow or surpass them to gain Spice-Girls-level fame? With the show only starting to film from November to December 2025, the expected date for Prelude’s debut is all the way in March 2026! There’s a long wait ahead… but not to worry, we’ve still got Katseye’s crazy Weverse Lives to keep us company until then. 

Rachel is a first-year student studying a double degree in Engineering and Global Development. When she’s not catching up on her math lectures from weeks ago, she consumes as much media as humanly possible, from classic literature to horror video game playthroughs.