Singer eSNa Opens Up About The Mistreatment She Suffered While Promoting “Aah! Oop!” Alongside MAMAMOO
Singer eSNa recently talked about her 2015 collaboration with MAMAMOO, and revealed how the whole experience was a very difficult and stressful time for her.
On August 14, eSNa uploaded a video on her YouTube channel, where she revealed the mistreatment she faced while promoting “Aah! Oop!” with her former labelmates, MAMAMOO. “Aah! Oop” was the first single released from MAMAMOO’s third mini-album titled Pink Funky, and was also the second collaboration with eSNa, after she featured on their song “Gentleman” from their second mini-album.
eSNa is a singer-songwriter with tons of credits to her name, including the 2014 hit song “Some”, sung by former SISTAR member Soyou and Jungigo, featuring Lil Boi from GEEKS. She also has credits for songs that she wrote for MAMAMOO, including “Piano Man”, “Gentleman” and “Don’t Be Happy”.
In the video, eSNa reveals that she was approached to work on “Aah! Oop!” as a song to be pitched for Lee Hi, but after finishing the track, she and her producer both loved the song so much, they agreed to set the song aside for her because it “had her written all over it”.
After the song has been shelved for almost two years, her producer then called her up with an idea: release the song as a collaboration with MAMAMOO. eSNa revealed her initial reaction had been less than enthusiastic because she had been sitting on the song for so long on the promise that it would be released as hers. She loved the song so much, and she was the one who worked very hard on it.
I still remember, I was taking a nap at home. And my producer called me, and he said, “Hey, I got an idea. How about you collaborate that song with MAMAMOO?”
And my initial reaction was like, “No. This is my song, I’m supposed to debut on TV with this song.”
— eSNa
After further discussions on it, eSNa finally agreed to release it as a collaboration because she hadn’t released music in a while, and really wanted to put something out. She also agreed to it because it was a collaboration, and so she would still get to sing the song under her name alongside talented artists like MAMAMOO.
eSNa then revealed that she not only wrote the song, but had to divide the parts among all five of the members, direct the members in the studio from beginning to end, and also provided background vocals to the song. She talked about how stressful it was for her, and the rollercoaster of emotions she went through, because it was supposed to be her debut track.
She then goes in-depth into her mistreatment. When they were finally getting ready to promote the song on TV, the promotions were supposed to be two weeks long, and eSNa was supposed to perform with them on every stage as the song was a collaboration between the two.
When the song and the MV were released, eSNa got tons of hate comments about her looks because she was dressed in a plain white suit as compared to the other funky, more colorful outfits the members of MAMAMOO wore, which made her look significantly older than the other members. Upon checking the song after it had been released, eSNa also revealed that her name wasn’t listed as a singer, and the song was completely attributed to MAMAMOO only.
To make matters worse, she was also told she had to be a certain weight to be able to appear on TV, and she underwent a dangerous diet to be able to hit the number required for her to be able to perform. After finally hitting that weight, eSNa performed a grand total of three times in the two-week-long promotional cycle, because netizens believed that she didn’t fit “visually” with MAMAMOO.
I was like, “I mean this goes against everything that I stand for, but if this is what I have to do, then I have to hit that number to promote my own song. F*ck, I gotta do it.”
— eSNa
After the first performance, eSNa and MAMAMOO go back to the company to keep practicing the song, when eSNa gets called into the producer’s office separately. The producer told her that people are reacting negatively to her collaborating with MAMAMOO, and so, they decided it was best for MAMAMOO to continue promoting the song without eSNa.
I get called in by the producer, and he sits me down and he’s like, “We read all the comments that people have been leaving on the videos, and they’re not very good- about you.
And I was like, “What are they saying?”
“They’re saying you look old, they’re just attacking you image-wise.”
— eSNa
She revealed then that she felt the agency didn’t have her back, and couldn’t trust them anymore after they removed her from promotions because of some negative comments. She then also revealed that she ended up leaving her contract and agency early as a mutual decision between her and the CEO of RBW Entertainment.
I think they were more worried about MAMAMOO’s image being hurt, than me. Which is why they took me out, that’s what I believe.
— eSNa
But in the end, eSNa got the last laugh! She ended up releasing a track she called “Aah! Shit!”, where she dissed her haters and encouraged her fans to love themselves no matter what, and the song turned out to be a total hit!
You can watch eSNa open about her entire experience here:
