Thirst Trap: Jennie Cover Story

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If you’re reading this, it’s likely one of two scenarios: You’re a Jennie superfan, or you know virtually nothing about the Korean pop star. 

You either have an obsessive recall of the 29-year-old’s mild Kiwi accent and love of capybaras, her Chanel campaign billboards displayed in all major cities, and every content upload she shares with her 86 million-plus Instagram following. 

Or you’ve only heard of her recently, if at all, through her collaborative tracks with Dominic Fike and Doechii, or her brief appearance on the ill-fated HBO show, The Idol. Maybe you recognize her as a member of the chart-topping, record-breaking K-pop group, Blackpink. 

In any case, now you know: Whoever this Jennie is, she looks good.

“I think I change on a daily basis. Every month is different for me, I admit that to my heart,” Jennie says. She’s sitting upright on a bench in an empty dressing room, after a day of shooting this cover story. One setup had her in a tracksuit layered under a sheer lace leotard; another, a football jersey cinched under a white corset. In the same afternoon, she also wore a baby pink Chanel jacket straight from the brand’s Couture runway, then a Palace x Adidas terry robe with leather zip-up boots. She moved with utter ease between each look and in front of the camera, her fluid body and chameleon face mesmerizing the onlooking crew more and more by the hour.

It’s a surreal day in LA, where it’s almost 80 degrees in the middle of February. The shoot shouldn’t be this easy. Weather this perfect. Everything moving as planned and scheduled. Couldn’t possibly. But it’s Jennie. She came prepared.

At the time of the shoot, there’s less than two weeks until the release of her solo album, Ruby. It’s Jennie’s first official solo music project since departing from her mother agency, Korea’s YG Entertainment, in December 2023. (Jennie remains contracted under YGE for group activities with Blackpink.) She’s set to kick off her accompanying LA/NYC/Seoul tour, The Ruby Experience, at the same time as the album release. Less than a month after that wraps, she’ll perform twice at Coachella on the festival’s closing days, along with Megan Thee Stallion and Post Malone. Needless to say, she’s been in back-to-back rehearsals with no time to spare—but you wouldn’t know that by the quiet calmness about her.

“I’m just an excited kid right now,” Jennie says. She’s changed out of her glam back to her off-duty look, a T-shirt with illustrations of dachshunds across the chest and ripped sweatpants. Pearls adorn her long, slender neck; her hair is cleared away in a bun. “My album gets to be alive, out in the world at places where people can feel [my music]. It’s so surreal.” 

Ruby is an amalgamation of musical genres on different ends of the sonic spectrum. There are ’90s hip-hop samples and R&B, full-on rap, and references to Brazilian funk, electropop, and alt-pop. Alongside Dominic Fike and Doechii, featured artists include FKJ, Dua Lipa, Childish Gambino, and Kali Uchis. Mike Will Made It, El Guincho, and Dem Jointz sit as producers. In addition to the diversity in genre, Jennie’s singing and rapping methods change between each track. Ruby is starkly different from her previous work, so much so that even hardcore stans were surprised with each song release, commenting on social media and Reddit threads: That was unexpected. This doesn’t even sound like her.

“Since this is my first studio album, I wanted to make sure each song had its own character,” Jennie says. She draws an analogy between her approach to music and her fashion choices. “I want to constantly try new styles, and coming up with new looks each time is my favorite part [about Fashion Week]. So with music, it was only natural for me to try every single genre I could think of, just to get it out of my system.” She strokes her hands down from her chest to show a motion of release. “I wanted to make sure to tap into everything to find out what makes sense for me. I’ve never been so dedicated to myself—I’m used to being out there, not inside and talking to me. I needed to find me, then decide what I wanted to tell the world.” 

Ruby opens with “Jane,” a dreamy, almost lullaby-like instrumental intro with Jennie’s whispering laughter inserted throughout. (Ruby Jane is Jennie’s self-given nickname, which she also used as a stage name in the credits for The Idol.) She had a hand in writing 11 of the album’s 15 songs, and produced two. “My work is special to me, because it’s me controlling it and only I can do it,” she says. 

While many of her peers in the world of pop music sing of love and heartbreak—and that’s definitely in Ruby, too—the majority of the album centers Jennie herself. On “Mantra”: This that pretty-girl mantra, she’s that stunna / Everyone know that she is me. On “Like Jennie”: They can never ever be like Jennie / But have you ever met Jennie? On “ExtraL”: Fuck your rules is the mood, damn right / Walk in a room and I set the vibe. Right now, Jennie exists only in relation to herself, and nothing else. 

“What helped me a lot through my sessions was opening up. That was the first thing I learned,” she says. “It had a lot to do with self-reflecting. It was the right timing in my life to do it now.” 

The cover art for Ruby shows Jennie wearing a long, (ruby) red wig, with her back fully turned to the camera. She’s looking up at a larger, giant version of herself. Big Jennie pulls back thick curtains, carefully revealing her face, peeping down at her mini-me. They stand staring at each other, everything around them blacked out. It’s a telling, almost literal depiction of the artist’s inner journey. After roughly a year of preparation, Jennie is about to show herself for who she is.

***

It’s been almost nine years since Jennie Kim debuted as part of Blackpink, the K-pop quartet made up of herself, Rosé, Jisoo, and Lisa. Blackpink is the second girl group produced by Teddy Park, who, under YG Entertainment, had single-handedly transformed how female musical acts in Korea could look and sound through his first girl group, 2NE1 (also a quartet, read as To Anyone). They preceded Blackpink by seven years and shocked the world with their thick eyeliner, mohawks, Lego jewelry, and rock songs about being ugly. Being the best. Not caring. Instead of cutesy stage costumes like school girl uniforms—which was (and still is) typical of Korean idols—they wore fur coats and ripped jeans. They made fans in fellow women and rose the ranks as the first-ever K-pop “girl crush.” 

Then came Blackpink in 2016. Like their sunbaes, they wore ripped jeans, but this time, also crop tops and miniskirts, Vetements bombers, and princess crowns. They chanted about being hot, not ugly. Blackpink carried through 2NE1’s girl-crush energy, but with an added upgrade; they were the platonically ideal, perfected version of K-pop superwomen. They broke records and made history as the first female K-pop act to perform at Coachella (2019), the first to win a VMA (2020), and the first to top the Billboard 200 (2022). In 2023, Blackpink became the first-ever Asian artist to headline Coachella. They remain as the most-subscribed artist on YouTube at 96 million subscribers, above BTS, Justin Bieber, Taylor Swift, Billie Eilish, and Bad Bunny.

“I’m part of a group. When there’s that link, we’re a family now. We take care of each other and we make sure we are good,” Jennie says of her team. 

But despite their success, or perhaps because of it, Blackpink activities halted as their YGE contracts expired. While they renewed their contracts for group promotions, the members decided to pursue their solo careers in different ways. At the same time as their individual departures, Jennie announced her own record label and management, OA Entertainment (short for “Oddatelier”). Lisa and Jisoo followed in her footsteps and founded their own respective companies, while Rosé signed with The Black Label, a YGE affiliate operated by Teddy Park. The four of them will reunite this summer for the Blackpink 2025 World Tour, which will run through early next year, but there’s no indication yet that they’ll release new music together. 

Lisa, who signed with RCA in April 2024, was the first member to release a US single, “Rockstar,” in June of that year. The following September, Jennie struck a deal with Columbia Records, and a few weeks later, Rosé with Atlantic. Jisoo became the latest to sign a global deal with an American label, Warner Records, in January. 

K-pop’s attempt to penetrate beyond Asia dates as far back as 2008, with Wonder Girls, BoA, and Rain. Wonder Girls toured with the Jonas Brothers, BoA was the first K-pop singer to ever make the Billboard 200 (at No. 127), and Rain took the Hollywood route, becoming the first Korean actor to win an MTV Movie Award for his role in 2009’s Ninja Assassin. Then there was CL, the lead rapper of 2NE1, who signed with Scooter Braun’s Schoolboy Records in 2014, and was named by Time magazine as “the future of K-pop in America.” But none of them ever quite made it Stateside. The only K-pop performer to have made a global name for himself in the 2010s was Psy with “Gangnam Style,” but that was a moment of accidental virality, a comedic one-hit wonder.

This was at least a decade before the era of K-pop stans and the BTS Army, before Korean music was legitimized as “cool” by wider audiences. In the West, K-pop idols were more perceived as hardworking, disciplined, and therefore talented, but not necessarily as stars—Their humility and discipline earned the sympathy of existing fans, but lacked a certain celebrity appeal. What sets Blackpink’s solo activities apart from previous generations is that they’re simply having fun; or at least, they appear to be. 

“We’ve grown and things have changed for us,” Jennie admits. “Now we all understand that boundary of wanting to be free, and we’re settling into that, which is so good. We’re so happy about it, and we want to do it well.”

When asked if she feels the pressure of going solo, Jennie shakes her head. “Not really. I shouldn’t feel that way. There’s no need,” she says. “I’ve dreamt of this moment for such a long time, and [this album] is part of my dream.” 

What about the responsibility of operating and leading her own company? “I don't like the word ‘responsibility’ right now,” she answers. “I'm trying to be a little easy with the responsibility part and follow my heart, and if my heart is at a good place, it'll take care of the responsibility itself. I let myself off of those pressures for a bit. I know it’s important, but I promised myself to keep that balance.”

***

The creative process for Ruby wasn’t as smooth sailing as today’s shoot. “I was lost for the longest time. The struggle was definitely there,” Jennie says. “I was spending months and months, day after day in the studio, still not having a single song that satisfied me.” She spent the first half of 2024 recording in LA, feeling that “something was off.” 

“Walking into this whole project, I thought, ‘Easy. I’ve got it down. I’ve been doing this my whole life,’” Jennie recalls. “Then as soon as the first session was over, I was like, ‘Oh my god, I don’t know what to do.’”

For Jennie, the most challenging and surprising part of producing the album was putting a brake on things—“actually knowing when to stop, because I can go on forever,” she says. “Telling myself, ‘This is the best version,’ was the hardest part. I didn’t think that would be a problem. I couldn't keep my calm.”

It wasn’t until she came across “Zen,” a bare, dramatic, and dark industrial track anchored in synth and drum beats, that things started to click and materialize. “That’s when I knew everything was going to fall into place,” she says. “I'm so proud of myself for not giving up.” 

In the music video, directed by renowned Korean photographer-director Cho Gi-seok, Jennie starts from atop a rock mountain, clad in gold armor, revealing in a blink of an eye an army surrounding her, kneeling at her feet. I tell ‘em, ‘Down, now,’ on the energy / I ain’t what you think about me, she warns. The unhurried pace of the song commands authority, as if Jennie is speaking to you directly, ordering respect. As the elements change from earth, fire, wind, and water, she transforms more than a dozen times (13 outfit changes, to be exact), until she finally becomes a bejeweled bird—and not just any bird, but a silver owl, a symbol of wisdom and clarity, strength and majesty, rebirth. She’s been through it all, through all of the elements and seasons, and with time, has evolved into the ultimate version of herself. Winged and armored, Jennie is free and in control, ready to break out of the mold she’s been defined by in her career so far. She’s still Jennie of Blackpink, K-pop royalty, but also stands on her own beyond it. She’s not only carving her own path, but taking flight and soaring, all while in her zen. Finally.

“Some people might feel the need to separate [themselves from their work], or some people might feel the need to be in sync. I think every artist has their own ways,” Jennie says. “But for me, I have leaned closer into, ‘Let’s make sure the gap isn’t too big.’” For Jennie, who started training at YGE at the age of 14, and whose public image was meticulously curated by their team of producers, this was a revelation. “Having that giant gap can get to you in a way where you weren’t prepared, and nobody tells you how to keep yourself safe from all that. I’ve come to a point where I’m ready to shorten this gap of the presented self and my actual self. The closer I am to me, the less anxiety.”

At the time of this writing, “ExtraL,” featuring Doechii, is Jennie’s most recently released track. Two days before their shoot for the music video, Doechii won the Grammy for Best Rap Album. “I wanted to give her great energy and just congratulate her, let her have fun. I didn’t want her to feel like it was work that day,” Jennie says. The Jennie we know by now is punctual and efficient, but she’s also caring and considerate of others around her. “[Doechii] is such a humble sweetheart,” Jennie gushes. “I wanted to make sure her day wasn’t any difficult because of me. We both felt that way. So we got it done really quickly. We knew what we had to do.”

Jennie knows exactly what to do next. After this interview, she’ll shoot a reel of herself dancing the choreo to “ExtraL” in the parking lot of this photo studio. Then later this week, she’ll head to Seoul for her album listening party. The Ruby Experience Tour kicks off the following week, back in LA again. “I feel alive when performing,” she says. “It only makes sense for me to bring the emotion live in front of people. That’s one of the biggest motivations that got me to start in music. It’s a blessing to have fans that want to watch and listen to you.” 

“My dream,” Jennie continues, “would be being an artist that does music which I can be proud of, and which I can a hundred percent claim for, where I feel that it's mine. Getting to that state is my dream.” She pauses. “I don’t want to get too deep into it. My dream is a very intimate thing for me, which motivates me.”

There’s the Jennie who’s obsessed with capybaras and kittens and puppies; the Jennie who’s professional, hardworking to the point of being almost mechanical. The Jennie who attends Chanel Couture, and who, with Blackpink, sells out world stadiums. Then there’s the Jennie behind closed doors, getting ready for her smaller-scale, more intimate solo shows. By herself, for herself. 

Whichever mode of Jennie she’s in, she looks good—and feels good—being all of it. And we have the permission, her invitation, to watch and listen.