G)I-DLE (Hangul: (여자)아이들; RR: Yeoja Aideul; lit. Young Girls; short for GIRL-I-DLE) is a South Korean girl group formed by Cube Entertainment in 2018. The group consists of six members: Miyeon, Minnie, Soojin, Soyeon, Yuqi, and Shuhua. The group debuted on May 2, 2018 with their first extended play titled I Am.

Pre-debut

Soyeon was previously introduced as one of the female trainees to represent Cube Entertainment on the Mnet survival show, Produce 101. She remained as a popular contestant throughout the show's run, peaking at 10th place on the fifth episode. However, she was ranked at 20th place in the final episode and failed to become a member of the winning girl group, I.O.I. Soyeon also competed in the third season of the rap competition show Unpretty Rapstar, where she finished as the second runner-up. She later debuted as a soloist, releasing two digital singles: "Jelly" and "Idle Song".

Miyeon had previously trained under YG Entertainment between 2010 and 2015. Soojin was a former trainee under DN Entertainment in 2015. She trained as a member of girl group VIVIDIVA, but left before the group's official debut. Her stage name was N.Na. Minnie, Yuqi and Shuhua appeared in a promotional video for Rising Star Cosmetic in June 2017. Shuhua made an appearance with labelmate Yu Seon-ho in 10cm's "Pet" music video in September 2017. Minnie was featured in Line Friends' album Dance Party, which was released in November 2017. From April 2018, Miyeon and Minnie made four cover videos uploaded under the Dingo Music YouTube channel. Yuqi also appeared in a short video for Dingo Music.

On March 22, 2018, Cube Entertainment announced that Soyeon would debut with an upcoming girl group in the first half of 2018. On April 5, they unveiled the name of their upcoming girl group to be "(G)I-DLE". Cube Entertainment began revealing the members of (G)I-DLE with the release of individual photos of Miyeon and Yuqi on April 8.Photos of Soojin and Shuhua were released on April 10, and followed by Minnie and Soyeon on April 12.

2018: Debut with I Am and rising popularity

(G)I-DLE officially released their debut mini-album I Am on May 2 with the lead single "Latata". Their debut showcase was held at the Blue Square iMarket Hall on the same day as the album's release. They made their official debut stage on the music program Mnet's M Countdown on the next day. (G)I-DLE achieved combined views of 2.2 million for the "Latata" music video within two days of its release. The mini-album debuted at number 13 on the Gaon Album Chart issued on April 29, 2018. I Am also debuted at number seven and has since peaked at number five on Billboard's World Albums chart on May 9, 2018. "Latata" debuted at number thirty-five on the Gaon Digital Chart on May 17, 2018. (G)I-DLE received their first-ever music show win on SBS MTV's The Show on May 22, twenty days after their debut. Two days later, on May 24, the group received their second music show win for "Latata" on Mnet's M Countdown and followed by their third win on The Show. After a month after debut, they made their debut on Billboard‘s Social 50 Chart by charting at number 36 on June 5.

On June 8, they made a debut in the rankings by topping the list for June. The rankings were determined through an analysis of the consumer participation, media coverage, interaction, and community indexes of various girl groups using big data collected from May 7 to June 8. In their first-ever appearance on the list, the group shot to first place with a brand reputation index of 10,038,719. High-ranking phrases in (G)I-DLE’s keyword analysis included “LATATA” (the group’s debut title track), “The Show,” and “debut,” while their highest-ranking related terms included “hot,” “pretty,” and “exciting.” The group’s positivity-negativity analysis revealed a score of 63.55 percent positive reactions. - Wikipedia