The group CORTIS won their first newcomer award at a music awards show since debut.
CORTIS (Martin, James, Juhun, Sunghyun, Geonho) won the "Best New Artist" category, which corresponds to the newcomer award, on the first day of the 2025 MAMA AWARDS held at Hong Kong Kai Tak Stadium on the 28th–29th.
The five members said, "It has been just over 100 days since our debut, and we are honored to receive such a major award. The newcomer award is something you can receive only once in your life, so it is deeply meaningful. First of all, we thank COER (our fandom). The fans are our greatest strength. We will repay the love we have received with great performances and music," they said. They also expressed condolences, saying, "We extend our deep condolences to the victims of the recent fire. We hope to offer comfort through our music and performances."
On the second day of the awards, they performed a show titled "MADE BY CORTIS." The intro track that played at the opening was a piece leader Martin participated in creating. The members brought out the music equipment they actually use and performed live. After a performance that seemed to recreate scenes of writing songs in the studio, they consecutively presented "GO!" and "FaSHioN," rearranged into metal rock.
By taking home the newcomer award at the 2025 MAMA AWARDS, CORTIS proved they are "this year's top rookie." Their debut album, "COLOR OUTSIDE THE LINES," surpassed 1.06 million cumulative sales on the Circle Chart about three months after release. It is the only single-album million seller among rookies who debuted this year. The album also entered the U.S. Billboard main album chart, the Billboard 200 (Sept. 27 issue), at No. 15, recording the highest debut-album ranking for a K-pop group excluding project groups.
Their digital music achievements also shone. The debut album surpassed 200 million cumulative streams on the global audio and music streaming platform Spotify (Nov. 27). It is the fastest to reach 200 million streams among rookies who debuted in 2025. In particular, the intro track "GO!" received great love, breaking into Melon's daily, weekly and monthly charts.
[Photo] Big Hit Music, provided by MAMA.
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