Some quotes (full interview on i-D's website):
Rosé and I have met at Le B – a restaurant The New Yorker described as “opulence theatre” due to its lavish use of ingredients like foie gras, truffle, and the aforementioned caviar – to gab about Rosie over tart, pale pink Cosmopolitans. (She has long loved the drink, since before she even saw Sex and the City, to the point that she thought about naming her fanbase “Cosmos” before landing on “Number Ones”.)
This promo jaunt has featured “a lot of anxiety attacks”, she says, and a lot of worry that, given the first chance to present the real Rosie, she’s blown it. “I was just a bit in my head – I was like, ‘I think everything’s good’, but then because I was feeling great, I was like, ‘Wait, what if the whole thing’s just fucked up?’,” she says. Although Rosé rarely seems tense – she is prone to whole-body fits of guffaws, during which she dramatically lurches herself forward – she is a five-foot-five bottle blonde ball of nerves. “I’ve been so excited to promote Rosie for such a long time that it kind of all came out in word vomit.”
Rosie was recorded over the past year in Los Angeles, miles removed from Blackpink’s homebase of Seoul, in the months following the conclusion of Blackpink’s year-long, 66-date Born Pink world tour. It was the group’s biggest run ever, during which they became the first K-Pop act to headline Coachella. Afterwards, Rosé says, she felt lost; she decamped to California, and found that working on her own music, outside the hyperefficient structures and heavy A&R-ing of K-Pop, shook her out of her post-tour comedown. “The album process was very therapeutic, it was the only place I felt sane. That’s why I did it for a year. I felt like I was being held by mum, or something,” she says. “There [were] bad days when I felt like I needed that [security] back, because I know what it feels like when I’m being, like, hugged and cradled.”
For all the excitement of working in Los Angeles for the first time, making Rosie was an isolating experience. “I was going back and forth from hotel to Airbnb, and that was really lonely. It’s so funny how I’ve chosen to forget the negative times – the many, many nights of me crying myself to sleep,” she says. “It’s like I’m forming this – not toxic – but toxic relationship with [music], because I’m obsessed with it, and sometimes it doesn’t work, but I need it in my life.”
“Number One Girl” was written on a day when all Rosé could really think about was how she was being perceived by the public. “I had been on the internet ‘til like 5am – I couldn’t sleep because I was so obsessed with what these people were gonna say about me and what I wanted them to say about me,” she recalls. “I was so disgusted at myself for it – I never wanted to admit it to anyone, I didn’t even want to admit it to myself. But I had to be fully honest in the studio.” For songwriter Amy Allen, who worked on the album, “Number One Girl” is Rosé “in a nutshell.” “Being a massive pop star, there’s so many things to be constantly juggling and handling, and having your personal life as well – it’s [like] a revolving door,” she says. “I think it’s really scary to dig into that sometimes, but it seemed to me as though the mission statement was always just to try and approach it with as much honesty as humanly possible.”
Even so, her social calendar in the US is getting busier by the day. Last September, she was photographed leaving Electric Lady Studios after an impromptu hangout hosted by Jack Antonoff, where guests included Taylor Swift. The meeting felt fortuitous; Rosé was in the midst of working out her solo career, and Swift was more than happy to give her advice. “I told her I’m such a huge fan and I just had some questions. As soon as she met me, she’s like ‘Spill, let me help you out,’” she recalls. “She gave me her experiences and was so ready to help me. She gave me her number and she’s like, ‘Let me know if you have any questions.’ Who does that? Like, you’re Taylor Swift! I’m really grateful for her because I was at a moment where I was drowning a little,” Rosé says. “She is literally the coolest, and she’s such a girl’s girl. She was telling me – make sure to take care of this, this and this – like, logistics. She was trying to protect me. Me becoming solo, being independent, it’s not an easy thing. There are a lot of things I should be careful with, and she gave me a rundown on all the things I have to look out for. That was the coolest part – she’s killed it in the game, and she was kind enough to walk me through.”
At one point, I express surprise that she was allowed to release a song like the drinking-game-inspired “Apt.”, the lead single from Rosie, due to rules around decorum for K-Pop idols. “I think drinking is not bad. It’s more like… dating,” she says glumly, before quickly changing the subject. Later on, I ask about what she thinks of NewJeans’ recent revolt against Hybe, their label, over the shafting of their executive producer Min Hee-jin. With a mouthful of Tasmanian sea trout, she raises her eyebrows and shakes her head in a tiny motion. “I want to talk about positive things. I love those girls so much.”
Rosie doesn’t necessarily showcase this more glamorous, jet-setting side of Rosé’s life but it does reveal the interiority and occasional loneliness that comes alongside it. If Blackpink was all armour, Rosie is all soft underbelly, vulnerable and playful in equal measure. “I wanted Rosie to portray what I live and breathe. I feel like Blackpink was my alter ego – I grew up watching Beyoncé performances, when it would take like, two hours to load videos on YouTube. I’m obsessed with that, and I’m so grateful because I’ve been able to live that life for almost a decade, and it still is the best thing,” she says. “But then Rosie, on the other hand, would be the girl who was downloading it at home. This is all me. Blackpink was the dream, Rosie is still the dream. I feel like they both represent me so well. And I mean, that’s why I always say: I’m a grateful little girl.”
No comments:
Post a Comment