Hwasa has shared an update regarding her forthcoming solo record, revealing it is “slightly on hold”.

The MAMAMOO singer recently sat for an interview with NME while backstage at HallyuPopFest London 2022, where she discussed her plans to work on her first-ever studio album as a follow-up to the release of her November 2021 single album ‘Guilty Pleasure’.

Hwasa touched on the difficulty she has faced in bouncing back from the pandemic as an artist. “Even now, I find it quite difficult,” she admitted. “I’m still in the phase of trying to find a balance and trying to feel alive.”

The K-pop idol also shared that this disconnect she was experiencing had resulted in a dissatisfaction with a lot of the music she has been making since ‘Guilty Pleasure’. “I definitely wasn’t ready mentally for the pandemic. I feel like I lost a lot of my bright side, so I’m still trying to adapt and adjust back to that side of myself,” she said.

Her forthcoming album “is not going as smoothly as I’d hoped, so that’s slightly on hold,” she went on to reveal, adding that she’s aiming to make music that will fill a lack in her discography: “After some thought, I realised I don’t have a lot of very energetic and fun songs in my portfolio so that’s what I’m going to work towards.”

Elsewhere in the interview, Hwasa talked about her fondness for her song ‘Maria’ and her gratitude towards her MAMAMOO bandmates for helping make her the artist she is today. Read it here.

Aside from ‘Guilty Pleasure’, Hwasa collaborated with Psy in May on the single ‘Now’, a cut from the ‘Gangnam Style’ artist’s recently released record ‘Psy 9th’. The track is a cover of a 1987 song of the same name by South Korean band Seoul Family, which itself was a remake of Jermaine Jackson and Pia Zadora’s 1984 hit single ‘When The Rain Begins To Fall’.

As for MAMAMOO, RBW Entertainment announced last month that the group are due to release a new album in the second half of 2022 “to commemorate the eighth anniversary of their debut”. The music label also added that MAMAMOO will be holding a concert as well, however further details about these projects have yet to be disclosed.