CORTIS Announce GREENGREEN EP With Lead Single April 20 and Full Release May 4

CORTIS (코르티스), BigHit Music's five-member rookie boy group, will release their second EP GREENGREEN on May 4, 2026 at 6 PM KST, with a lead single arriving on April 20 at the same time. BigHit Music confirmed the dates in an official announcement on March 6, 2026, as reported by Forbes, kicking off a controlled rollout two weeks before the full project lands. The comeback arrives roughly eight months after CORTIS debuted on August 18, 2025, and follows a debut run that pushed their first EP "Color Outside the Lines" to number 15 on the Billboard 200 and past two million in cumulative sales. GREENGREEN is a six-track project and their first full comeback as a group. This is not a group easing into a sophomore cycle. BigHit is running the same playbook that turned BTS (방탄소년단) and TXT (투모로우바이투게더) into global headliners: establish fast, come back faster, never let the momentum cool.

Eight Months, Two Million Copies

The numbers CORTIS posted in their first eight months are difficult to overstate. Their debut EP "Color Outside the Lines" entered the Billboard 200 at number 15, the second-highest entry position ever recorded for a K-pop act's debut album, per Korea Times. The project surpassed two million in cumulative sales and stacked over 400 million Spotify streams on debut material alone, according to The Chosun Ilbo. Individual tracks "Go!" and "FaSHioN" each crossed 100 million Spotify streams, reaching those marks in 116 and 132 days respectively. In February 2026, CORTIS became the first Korean boy group to headline an NBA event, performing at the halftime show of the 2026 Ruffles NBA All-Star Celebrity Game at Kia Forum in Los Angeles, per Korea JoongAng Daily. Eight months in, the data was already making a case that few K-pop rookies ever get to argue.

The Golden Disc Awards named them Rookie Artist of the Year in January. Then on March 27, 2026, they took home fan-voted Best New Artist in K-pop at the iHeartRadio Music Awards at the Dolby Theater in LA. We covered that win in full. The Coer (코어) fandom is already operating at a scale that most rookie groups do not see until year three.

How GREENGREEN Rolls Out

The rollout is structured and moving fast. According to the promotion schedule posted to CORTIS's official social media on March 26, 2026, as confirmed by Star News Korea, the first wave of content drops in the first week of April: album concept photos that introduce the visual direction for the GREENGREEN era. The second week of April brings the full tracklist and music video teaser for the lead single. Then April 20 arrives. The title track drops at 6 PM KST and CORTIS heads immediately into music show promotions that same week. Performance films focused on the MV choreography are also scheduled to roll out in sequence. Release party events with fans are confirmed for both the April 20 lead single week and the full album week on May 4, meaning the fandom gets two distinct in-person moments built into the campaign. Spotify pre-saves for GREENGREEN surpassed 500,000 before the full schedule was even announced, a figure that signals the Coer fanbase has grown considerably since debut.

Why CORTIS's Sophomore Era Carries More Weight Than Most Comebacks

CORTIS are the first new act from BigHit Music since TXT debuted in 2019. That is a six-year gap, and it means CORTIS are not just doing a comeback, they are carrying the label's next chapter. HYBE, BigHit's parent company, built its US infrastructure around BTS and TXT over the better part of a decade. The distribution partnership with Republic Records that now sits behind CORTIS is the same infrastructure that powered BTS's North American stadium runs. The debut era proved the global audience existed. GREENGREEN is the test of whether it grows or plateaus. As we noted in our breakdown of the 2026 rookie boy group surge, CORTIS are the clearest case for the argument that this generation of debuts is moving differently: faster chart entries, more US presence from the start, fanbases that are globally organized before the group's first anniversary. The iHeartRadio win two weeks before the lead single is not an accident. BigHit timed it. GREENGREEN is the follow-through.