“Rise & Realize” was RIIZE’s founding promise — the idea that growth and self-discovery move in tandem. With its second mini album, II, the six-member SM Entertainment group pushes that motto into a more active tense: “Rise to Realize,” as SUNGCHAN would describe during an interview with Billboard Korea. It is an idea that you do not find yourself first and then move forward. You move, and the moving is how you begin to understand who you are.
Since debuting in September 2023 with “Get a Guitar,” RIIZE — comprised of SHOTARO, EUNSEOK, SUNGCHAN, WONBIN, SOHEE and ANTON — has built that idea into one of K-pop’s more closely watched rising groups. The group has earned multiple Rookie of the Year honors, and its debut full-length, ODYSSEY, a third consecutive million-seller at home, reached No. 4 on Billboard‘s World Albums and No. 9 on Top Album Sales in 2025.
After November’s “Fame,” its reach kept widening onstage, with appearances at Tecate Emblema, Austin City Limits and, in March, Lollapalooza South America, where RIIZE became the first K-pop boy group to appear at the festival. Released via SM Entertainment and RCA Records, II gives that momentum a clearer international frame. But the ambition has been visible from the start: to build a group whose music can travel without losing the emotional candor at its core. Across six tracks, RIIZE on II moves through rock-edged urgency, bass house, R&B, hip-hop, funk and bright pop while staying close to the “emotional pop” identity that has defined its work.
