BLACKPINK's Jennie Gets Real About Feeling Restricted In Korea And How BLINKs Help Overcome Her Fears

BLACKPINK‘s Jennie recently sat down with English singer and songwriter Dua Lipa to discuss her life and career on the Dua Lip: At Your Service podcast.

During the interview, Jennie reveals that while she was a trainee, she was assigned the “rap” position in the group, and as time went on, she began questioning that. Luckily she was able to resolve this after some inner reflection.

“There was a moment where I was denying myself because of the idea that I didn’t pick this path, that somebody else has picked for me. After taking some time off of work and listening to music in general, and then I actually looked back to the videos that I performed and when I was doing lives, to like actually see myself like enjoying rapping on stage and that’s the moment where I accepted the fact that, that is a part of me.“

— BLACKPINK’s Jennie

The BLACKPINK member also discussed feeling restricted as a K-Pop idol and how fans were able to help her overcome her fears of letting her true self shine.

Dua Lipa mentioned that Jennie seems to love the song “Tally,” one of BLACKPINK’s newer tracks. When the song was released, it made waves due to its explicit and carefree lyrics.

When asked what the song means to her, Jennie shared that as a K-Pop artist, she has felt restricted in what she can say and do on stage and was afraid of expressing herself.

“Starting my career in Korea as a K-pop artist has restricted so many sides of me where it wasn’t just allowed to be shown because I’m a K-pop idol, and I think I was scared also to express myself. And as things grew over time, I was able to express myself, and people would see it as breaking the boundaries rather than she’s doing something that she’s not allowed to do and being able to open a new chapter for people that are starting the business.”

Tally noticeably has several f-bombs throughout the song, and Jennie was initially unable even to say the word out loud.

“The song Tally was one of the first songs that we actually say the F word, at first when I started performing the song I couldn’t even say it out loud.”

After some initial fear, Jennie says she realized that BLINKs loved the song and that they gave her the confidence to enjoy performing the meaningful song.

“I was like.. can I move away from the mic, what if people think this is not right and then more fans were loving the song and I was connecting with BLINKS while I was on stage and singing the song they were like ‘yeah do your thing.’ They were the ones who gave me my confidence and support to really enjoy the song.”

We are so glad Jennie is able to fully enjoy performing Tally, because the song is a bop!