BLACKPINK‘s Jennie was the latest guest on Dua Lipa‘s Dua Lip: At Your Service podcast, where the two talked about her life and career.
During the interview, Jennie discusses her time as a trainee, first talking about all the techniques and dance styles she learned and how they helped her find what she was good at.
Learning something that you’re not good at, helps you find what your main genre is when it comes to dance and vocals. I have to say just trying out all sorts of things has pinpointed to become who I am.
— Jennie
Dua Lipa brings up that because of her English skill, Jennie was assigned to be one of BLACKPINK’s rappers, and that she has grown into the role. Jennie reveals that she at first got so into the rapping roles, but later on questioned how it played into her identity as a musician.
“I’ve never really said this anywhere, but I’ve wanted to. It’s something to do with me rapping. So, like you said I’ve gotten into the whole idea of rapping because of the language that I was working with and that’s how I started. Back when I was a trainee, I thought this is what I’m, what I was supposed to do.
I got so into it and by the time we debuted, in my head, I’m thinking, I’m a rapper. Like, in my head, I’m gonna go out there and rap my ass off. But the strange part was, like how you said before about finding your identity as a trainee too, we did like six songs where I would just rap like seriously rap. And along the way I kind of got confused.”
Jennie then says that because of this internal conflict, she actually grew to hate rapping during part of her career.
“The more I did singing and music, the more I came to realize that there’s a big side of me inside that I love to sing. Just play with my vocals, but I actually never really had the chance to explore that as a trainee, because I got told that I should be a rapper, You know. So there was a phase where I would hate to rap. I was like this isn’t me, this isn’t the Jennie that I envisioned in my head, I don’t think I’m a rapper. So there was definitely a burnout season.”
She continues, explaining that she took some time off to really think about her career and figure out what she wanted. Ultimately, she saw that she does enjoy rapping as another part of herself.
“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.”
Thankfully, Jennie shared she feels lucky to currently be in a position where she can explore all her different sides!
