Reality in Black

In March 2019, Mamamoo released their ninth EP, White Wind, which served as the fourth and final installment of their "Four Seasons, Four Colors" series of albums. Shortly after, they embarked on their fifth concert tour 4Seasons F/W, which saw them visit Japan, Taiwan, and Hong Kong in addition to their native South Korea. In July 2019, it was announced that Mamamoo would join the cast of Queendom, a competitive reality television show, in which six trending female K-pop acts competed for their own comeback showcase to air on South Korean pay TV channel Mnet.[1] The song "Destiny" was released within the frame of the competition and later included on the album. On October 31, during the last episode of Queendom, Mamamoo were declared the winners of the competition.[2]

On November 1, the impending release of the group's second full studio album was announced through Mamamoo's official social media accounts. The next day, the title, album cover and release date were revealed through the group's official Twitter account.[3][4] BLACK was also revealed to partially be an acronym for "Bless Life and Carry Knowledge."[5] Multiple concept pictures of the individual members and video teasers led up to the release of the album on November 14, showing the members in several alternate universe settings in which they were not part of Mamamoo.[6]

Reality in Black was released in full to digital and physical retailers on November 14, 2019.[7][8][9] The Japanese edition of the album, featuring the Japanese-language version of "Hip" and the original Japanese song "Shampoo," was released on March 11, 2020.[10]

Reality in Black experienced commercial success upon its release. It debuted and peaked at number one on the Gaon Digital Chart in South Korea, becoming their third number-one album after Yellow Flower (2018) and White Wind (2019).[16] The album became their best-selling to date, with 102,171 copies sold in November 2019[18] and over 120,000 copies sold as of October 2020.[19] The album debuted at number 12 on the Billboard World Albums chart, peaking at number 11 the next week, with over 1,000 copies sold.[20] Following the 2020 release of the Japanese edition, Reality in Black peaked at number 27 on the Oricon Albums Chart in Japan.[21]

Samples

• "Universe" contains an uncredited sample of "NASA" by Ariana Grande, written by Grande, Victoria Monét, Taylor Parks, Tommy Brown and Charles Anderson.[22]