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Throughout the last decade, the doe-eyed singer found stardom in the biggest girl-group in the world. Now, charting her first tangible steps as a solo artist, JENNIE is diverging from the path of candy-coated maximalism to a more expansive world.
As seen in CLASH 130. Order your copy here.
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In the trailer for her debut album, ‘Ruby’, Jennie Kim peers through the curtains of a proscenium, her gaze fixed firmly on the audience. Superimposed, she looks down at her wonderstruck doppelganger, before doubling back in fear. A sequence of conflicting emotions cascade across the screen: wonderment, euphoria, trepidation, steely-eyed defiance. The red curtain? A demiurgic divide between Jennie’s past and her vision for an ever-expanding future. This is JENNIE and the awakening of her crimson dream.
When the video went live, the South Korean singer felt the ground beneath begin to quake. “Something shifted. I felt something new; I got butterflies, I felt sick, I felt elation. I was experiencing new emotions,” Jennie tells CLASH breathlessly from her base in Los Angeles, where she’s rehearsing for a string of shows billed ‘The Ruby Experience’, as well as her much-anticipated solo set at Coachella. Soundtracked by the song ‘Zen’, the big room galactic-pop odyssey was released only on YouTube as a visual prelude. Directed by Cho Gi-seok with a flurry of meticulously-designed looks styled by Park Min-hee, an elfin Jennie taps into elements to illustrate the chaos and clarity of her ongoing transformation: the clash of tradition with newness; ceremonial pomp with earthly grittiness; refined sophistication with the raw, unrefined parts of Jennie’s repertoire.
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A week prior, Jennie’s cover shoot for CLASH is its own heightened theatrical experience. On set, she’s swarmed by a cavalcade of photographers, stylists, assistants, translators and security personnel forming a protective unit around her in what can only be described as an enclosed military operation. A global ambassador for Chanel, the primary leather-clad look for the shoot merges the hallmarks of time-honoured tailoring with Jennie’s natural, girl-next-door aesthetic. As the photographer signals go, she morphs from the shy, slightly worn ingénue to a zoned-in professional who has honed the art of embodying a character in service of her art.
Jennie ascribes formative moments in her personal history with the fashion house’s vision. She’s not just a muse; theirs is a symbiotic partnership cultivated over time. “I’ve been working with Chanel for seven years now,” Jennie says. “Over time, we developed a special relationship; we know how to tailor Chanel to suit my own explorations and likes. I’m so thankful for that. The way they’ve maintained their classic background… they can be creative but still keep their hallmarks and identity.”
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“You’re taking me back a while,” Jennie says when asked about the making of ‘Zen’, a fiery paean to her stoicism, the realisation of lofty dreams and the gradual reveal of a pop icon in the making. “I knew I had to tap into that zone inside of me, this feeling of restlessness and change,” she continues. “I want to tell the world what I’ve been suppressing, and what I’ve been holding onto. The recording part was a challenge because I wanted it to be real. I didn’t want to sound perfect: I wanted kinks in the audio. It had to be all of me.”
‘Ruby’ represents a breakaway from YG Entertainment for Jennie’s solo releases; it’s the inaugural project on her own label Odd Atelier, in partnership with Columbia Records. Her imprint, she says, is a safe zone; an opportunity to propagate a holistic environment with creative camaraderie at the heart of it. “For me, when I decided to start my own label, I didn’t think about it as an entertainment company or a corporate entity,” Jennie explains. “It was more about it being an environment where I could work within a team structure. We had a great year last year creating this album, and now we know a bit more about how to present art to the world.”
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‘Ruby’ subverts the idea that an ambassador of this bright, larger-than-life K-pop world has to be faultless, or culturally homogenous. Jennie took inspiration from the the infamous speech ‘Seven Ages of Man’ from Shakespeare’s pastoral comedy As You Like It, mirroring seven junctures of her life thus far; traversing the idealist, the trainee, the girl group member and now, the solo star. “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players,” Jennie recites. “I was inspired by that monologue because it represents these next steps to a whole new stage of my life. I’ve been wanting to do this musically for a long time. Even with all I’ve accomplished in my life, this album feels like a whole other level of discovery because I’m discovering everything on my own. It’s scary but thrilling also.” As page-turning chapters go, this one’s foundational.
Born in South Korea, Jennie moved to New Zealand when she was just 10. Like many of her peers, her conception of home was defined in part by the authoritarian ways of trainee life. Guided by her mother, it was Jennie’s decision to seek an education in Auckland within a homestay arrangement. It’s here she adopted the name Jennie Ruby Jane; a rare gemstone forged under extreme pressure. “Rubies symbolise courage, resilience and strength, which are qualities I have and try to live up to everyday,” Jennie says in a polyglot accent that comes through in soft, measured purrs.
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Contemplating the years away from her family – the toil, the sacrifices and the malleability of her youth as an idol-in-the-making (idols are trained in singing, dancing, language acquisition, and sometimes acting) – ‘Ruby’ conveys the full breadth of Jennie’s journey to now, before and after her breakthrough. “I didn’t know any English or have an awareness of the cultural background in New Zealand. I consider myself to be a fast learner and I settled into the environment quite quickly. The cultural difference shocked me but in a good way,” Jennie says of those intervening years which inspired a degree of self-sufficiency whilst also encouraging a communal way of being – a precursor to her debut with BLACKPINK. “When I started in BLACKPINK, I was so young and naive. I didn’t know what I was getting myself into. Over time, I’ve come to realise the meaning and significance of having these girls in my life, whilst trying to figure out my own identity,” she reflects.
What BLACKPINK has achieved, on several counts, is unprecedented. Founded in 2016 by YG entertainment, ‘The Album’ and ‘Born Pink’, released in 2020 and 2022 respectively, not only became record-breaking projects in their native South Korea, but the latter was the first full-length by a girl group to reach number one on the Billboard 200 since Danity Kane in 2008. The album’s lead single, ‘Pink Venom’ – a clamorous fusion of post-millennia RnB-coded beats and the resonant tones of the Korean zither – became the first song by a girl group to reach number one on the Billboard Global 200.
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BLACKPINK generate a zealous online fandemonium with their carefully-staged releases and stadium-ready shows. They’ve established their own quasi-mythological language; clean cut choreography, futuristic visuals and slogans lined with allusions to girl power, superheroines, and aspirational, sometimes cliched notions of duality and desire. But they sit at the modern edge of a K-pop generation threatening to become ever more saturated and obsolete. The veil is lifting on the blood sport nature of talent competitions headed up by entertainment conglomerates prizing youth over talent, and a militant work ethic over rest and recovery. How much of what these K-pop stars convey is actually them? What individual quirks get flattened in service of a mass-produced whole? When idols can’t sustain an air of omnipotence, they fracture. A once prized product discontinued.
BLACKPINK’s story runs counter to that narrative. They’re a global phenomenon because they’ve set their own course away from the pop phraseology du jour, yet are still of that world. Each member has their unique idiosyncrasies and as a troupe they’re watertight. Even as Jennie and her bandmates unveil solo projects in quick succession, they’ve invoked their catchphrase once again: BLACKPINK will be back in your area, embarking on a global tour that will consume the back half of the year. For now, Jennie envisions a future where her solo releases run in tandem with group activity. “Me and the girls talk about how we’ve come so far together. When we first debuted as BLACKPINK, it took six years of my trainee life. It felt like a lifetime in the making,” she says. “We are family. We care for each other. To be able to show that glory as BP, it’ll never not make me proud.”
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Jennie’s first steps as a solo artist into America’s typically impenetrable industry came on a collaboration with Matt Champion of progressive-rap collective Brockhampton. A neat symmetry in their journeys as part of zeitgeist-shaping, headline-grabbing supergroups was captured on ‘Slow Motion’ – a lullaby-lilting DnB emulsion speaking to fragmented relationships and the shrinking nature of reality. For Jennie, the experience was character-building. “‘Slow Motion’ was one of the first sessions I did in LA by myself,” she explains. “I didn’t know what to expect but Matt really guided me through that session because I was so anxious. He enabled me to be free and express myself as a creative person. It opened my mind to the possibilities of being in LA, moving in these creative circles whilst trying to find my sound.”
Jennie’s album reflects a new era of experimentation for the Korean musician, one teeming with ideas inspired by a grand sweep of genres; trap, space disco, dimly-lit RnB, folktronic ballads. Where marquee crossover releases from other K-pop stars suffer from tonal whiplash, ‘Ruby’ succeeds because of its subtle tesselation between softness and abrasiveness. The intro ‘JANE’ sees the singer enlist downtempo maestro FKJ for a sci-fi-tinged instrumental with ASMR-inspired vocals fluttering in and out the mix; the noirish throwback RnB cut ‘Damn Right’, with Kali Uchis and Childish Gambino, is a lovemaking profusion unlike anything Jennie has released to date.
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‘Love Hangover’, which Jennie co-produced, is the kind of smooth, effusive, deceptively catchy number tailor made for adult contemporary radio: the track’s trip-hop-esque coda, the height of her lovestruck delirium, ranks as a highlight for Jennie. “Those last thirty or so seconds is one of my favourite moments on the album.” She loves it so much, she’s already thinking up a remix. “I can’t wait to make another version of the track that leans into that cosmic moment you hear at the end. What I love about ‘Love Hangover’ is that it all happened so organically.”
Hip-hop producers Mike WiLL Made It and Dem Jointz tease out untapped parts of Jennie’s persona – the endearingly off-kilter and sphinxlike sides. Dem Jointz masterminded the stomp-and-chant empowerment anthem ‘ExtraL’, featuring star of the moment, Doechii. “Working with Doechii has been a dream. She’s so talented and so easygoing. I’ll never forget how she managed to give her all at a time when she’s having her own moment,” Jennie says, sharing that studio sessions for ‘ExtraL’ were amongst the wildest she’d had to date. “Dem Jointz took hold of this ship and steered it in every direction possible. I was just along for the ride,” her modesty belying the emboldened message at the heart of the song, derived from her own childlike dream of having a song to scream with her girlfriends.
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Despite ‘Ruby’ being feature-centric, Jennie wants the world to know her collaborators weren’t a label-motivated decision but a result of her growing confidence in self-curation. “This is a musician’s record, and the collaborators represent all the sounds I enjoy,” she explains. “They’re very used to hearing me in one pocket of sound… I would love for people to understand how versatile I am.” Much of BLACKPINK’s production was handled by Korean producer Teddy Park, who encouraged Jennie to colour outside the dotted lines. Throughout ‘Ruby’, Jennie leans on her experience and training to convey the full gamut of her vocal range after years of syncing her voice with that of her band members. “Surprisingly when it came to vocal production, it was in the same world that I used to work with Teddy. I felt confident experimenting. I was doing a lot of layering, stacking, harmonising and ad-libbing on my own. Vocally, this album didn’t feel unfamiliar. I did have more responsibility but it’s all my ears and my instincts,’ she says.
As hard-hitting and probing as some of the numbers on ‘Ruby’ are, Jennie doesn’t want to forego being lighthearted and playful. On ‘like JENNIE’, she decries AI copies, singing of the virtues of materialism whilst blithely responding to her naysayers. “It’s not as serious as it may seem,” Jennie says of the bombastic track, and the album at-large. “It’s me celebrating my style and my artistry whilst including the fans in the experience. It’s interactive. It’s one of the gifts of being a public-facing figure. I’m saying get your hair done and get your nails done like me, but in a fun way. It’s really a mirror for them to be who they are. It’s a self-love anthem.” It’s that spirited, high-on-life feeling she most wants to filter through to her loyal “Rubies”, and casual listeners alike. “Whilst I want the world to see my sincerity on this record, I don’t want everyone to approach this album so seriously,” she says. “I had so much fun making this record and I think it really shows.”
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Earlier this month Jennie was honoured at Billboard’s Women in Music ceremony, receiving the ‘Global Force’ award in recognition of her trailblazing presence in music and wider culture. She’s a worthy recipient because she’s reshaping the K-pop biosphere in her own image, extending her reach beyond that sanitised world now that her influences have diversified and deepened.
By her own admission, ‘Ruby’ is an overture to an unfolding story. She circles back to the proscenium. The red curtains. The first act. “I’ve learnt so much over the past year about myself. I’ve unlocked parts of my creativity I didn’t know I had. This all feels like I’m opening the curtains of a play,” Jennie ponders for a few seconds… “As cliche as it sounds, it really does feel like the beginning.”
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As seen in CLASH 130. Order your copy here.
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Words: Shahzaib Hussain
Photography: Brendan Freeman
Fashion: Park Min Hee
Creative Direction: Rob Meyers
Makeup: Sol Lee
Hair: Gabe Sin
Manicurist: Ella Vivii
Set Design: Isaac Ashley
Production: Rosie Cartwright
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