ROSÉ

There’s a verse in her 2021 debut solo single “On the Ground” that BLACKPINK member ROSÉ singles out as being especially meaningful: “I worked my whole life/Just to get right, just to be like/‘Look at me, I'm never comin' down.’” “That verse just hits me,” she told Apple Music’s Zane Lowe. “It’s just the fact that, literally, I have been working my whole life.” Born Roseanne Chaeyoung Park to Korean parents in Aotearoa New Zealand in 1997, ROSÉ grew up mostly in Melbourne, Australia, where she sang in the church choir and learned how to play piano and guitar, dreaming of becoming a professional musician. In 2012, she passed an audition to become a K-pop trainee under YG Entertainment, and she moved to Seoul as a teenager. After four years of a famously rigorous K-pop training process that includes singing, dancing, and language lessons, ROSÉ debuted with BLACKPINK—alongside JISOO, JENNIE, and LISA—in 2016. The hard work paid off, with BLACKPINK shooting to global stardom. Their debut song “BOOMBAYAH” reached No. 1 on Billboard’s World Digital Song Sales chart, and was followed by other hits like "DDU-DU DDU-DU" and "Kill This Love.” In 2023, they became the first Korean act to headline Coachella. In 2021, ROSÉ released her debut single R, which included the breakup track “Gone” alongside “On the Ground.” The latter became the highest-charting song by a Korean female soloist on the Billboard Hot 100, and became the first song by a Korean soloist to top the Billboard Global 200. The song is a reminder of the importance of staying grounded in reality and being grateful for what you find there, even—and perhaps especially—when you’re one of the biggest K-pop artists in the world.