Updated December 13, 2024 at 12:52 PM ET
The biggest K-pop girl group in the world is currently on a break, but its four members are hard at work.
Rosé, Jennie, Lisa and Jisoo have all been working on solo albums and projects before they plan to reunite some time next year.
The first member of the group to release an album, Rosé, spoke to Morning Edition about her solo project. Titled rosie, the nickname she is called by her friends and family, the album signals a more personal shift for the artist.
In "Number One Girl," the first song on the album, Rosé, who was born in New Zealand and raised in Australia, opens up about how she felt after a fancy, star-studded event. It was a night when she was "supposed to feel very, very special." Instead, the artist says, she went back to her hotel room and read negative comments about herself online.
"I felt very empty that night. And I found myself back at the hotel room. I ended up scrolling through the internet, just hurting myself."
As a group, BLACKPINK has charted regularly and set Billboard records since making its debut in 2016. Last year, BLACKPINK became the most streamed female group on Spotify, according to Guinness World Records.
Now, Rosé is hoping to reach some of those heights on her own. Her first debut single and breakout song, "APT," has sat at No. 1 on the Billboard Global 200 for the past seven weeks. It has about a billion plays on YouTube Music and more than half a billion listens on Spotify. And according to Billboard, Rosé made history as the first female K-pop artist to reach the Top 10 on the Billboard Hot 100.
She spoke to A Martínez about what inspired her album, working with BLACKPINK and how she'll feel once they reunite.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Rosé on how she felt after the events that inspired her writing "Number One Girl":
I was supposed to feel very, very special. But interestingly, I felt very empty that night. And I found myself back at the hotel room. I ended up scrolling through the internet, just hurting myself.
A Martínez: That's always dangerous. Scrolling through the internet.
Rosé: Very dangerous. The next day, I walked up to the studio and everyone asked me how I had been. There was nothing else to say except "I'm terrible." You know, when you ask somebody, "how was your day?" And they give you the worst answer. I was just like, "Yeah, I just want to write a song that is just disgustingly honest."
Martínez: And why is honesty disgusting? Why would honesty be disgusting?
Rosé: I think sometimes it can be a bit disgusting. Sometimes I think I feel like I want to be the girl who promotes self-confidence and says, "don't listen to what people say." But it wasn't like that at all. I was searching for validation, and that was part of me that day.
Martínez: Your parents are from South Korea. You were born in New Zealand but then grew up in Australia. And then when you were around 15 years old is when you signed with YG Entertainment in South Korea. So, tell me about going in a circle back to your parents' cultural roots. It reminds me of Selena, the Tejano singer, Selena, who was popular in Mexico before she became popular anywhere else. And that's where her parents were from. So tell me about that kind of circular journey.
Rosé: We spoke Korean at home, and so Korean culture was always part of our family. And also every Sunday we would go to Korean church. So I thought I understood the culture very well. But I remember when I flew to Korea at 15, 16 years old, that's when I started to learn that I had so much to learn about the culture, and it was a bit of a struggle the first four years I would say.
Martínez: Like what? What was the biggest thing?
Rosé: Respect. I thought I felt like I understood how to be respectful in Korea, but there were so many more layers to it once I got there. But I got my way through it and I survived.
Martínez: So you collaborated with Bruno Mars on a song that's pretty much everywhere right now, called "APT." Tell us what that APT means.
Rosé: APT, or apateu, means "apartment" in Korean. And I guess apartment shortened in English is APT. It's a Korean drinking game. And so the song was inspired from a night that I was teaching my friends at the studio one day how to play and they seemed to love it so much. So I jokingly said that we should write a song about it.
Martínez: It's a drinking game that I have played because I grew up in Koreatown in Los Angeles.
Rosé: Wait, what?
Martínez: Yeah. I mean, I was born in downtown LA, but I grew up in Koreatown. I'd go out to bars in Koreatown — when I was of age — and that game would be played.
Rosé: That's cool.
Martínez: So how much creative control do you have over what you do in BLACKPINK as opposed to this album? I mean, I'm assuming that you have more freedom with what you're doing now as opposed to being in a group.
Rosé: But I think, eventually, as we evolved as BLACKPINK, we were very vocal about our opinions and our producer, Teddy, would always make sure it was a collaborative work and we were all part of the creating process. But when I'm by myself, it's, like, entirely me. So that is a big difference.
Martínez: So you pretty much have been working nonstop since you were a teenager. And then with this album coming out, when do you foresee any moments for yourself?
Rosé: It's a good question, because I think it's a bit more challenging for me to know how to take a break because I've been so trained to just know how to work all the time. Learning and knowing how to rest is my next homework, because I've never really been taught how to do it. And I have learned that, you know, it's something that's very necessary in order for me to even work, long term. So, you know, I'm learning.
Martínez: I mean, do you think that this album changes the dynamic when all of you get back together? If you get back together, I mean?
Rosé: Yeah, we definitely are. I think it'll be for the better. Like, I think we're all creatives and moral people who need to just be inspired sometimes. And we were, like, stuck — not stuck — but we were working with each other for over 12 years. And so it was about time that we should go out, explore, do everything we want and need to do, and if we get back together, it's going to be better than ever, which I believe it's going to be. So I'm very excited to get back with the girls.
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