K-Netizens Breaks Down Why Jennie Was The First To Solo in BLACKPINK
So why among 4 members of BLACKPINK, the main rapper Kim Jennie was the one to debut her solo track first? Did it have anything to do with the "mistreat" of YG that people had claimed before?
At the age of 14, Jennie Kim was the first member in BLACKPINK to audition for YG Ent. in July, 2010, making her the longest trainee out of all the members in BLACKPINK!
After 2 years Jennie was finally introduced as a member of YG when the girl was just turning 16 years old.
Jennie's pre-debut popularity in 2013 began to make its presence known in South Korea as she would be spotted talking to fans outside of YG Ent.'s building.
Some fans would even ask other trainees to deliver gifts to Jennie for them, which makes perfect sense that she'd go solo first.
There was an article of an ex-trainee of YG in which she shared some details about YG.
"Among YG trainees it's not entirely true that they do not know each other. Especially like non-Koreans/foreign nationalities would definitely interact with groups of the same nations however, dating is highly unlikely due to time constraints, usually, just the basic greetings when meet and also people will take notice of famous trainees."
"For example, Jennie unnie. When she's still trainee even at another company she's fairly famous."
"More YG's Chinese staff really took care of us during trainee days which I'm really sincerely grateful for them. In YG in terms of appearance and body figure, they're more focused on maintaining a good body figure rather than good looks. You can look ugly but you cannot be fat. Being fat = the chances of debuting is approximately less than 10%."
Speaking in popularity, Jennie Kim was the first trainee in K-Pop to trend #1 on Naver and in top 5 worldwide in 2012 after her 1st practice video was posted which proves her "it girl" momentum in SK at that time even more and her ability to succeed as a soloist in 2018.
The debut of the main rapper was postponed not once but twice in both 2012 and 2013. This left Jennie uncertain of whether she'd ever debut...
Not to mention that she spent 6 years of being in YG's basement while the average training years are 4. In an interview about such a long trainee period, Jennie said: "I was expecting because I heard that YG girl group is going to be launched, yet it wasn't thrilled. Rather than aiming for debut between members, I say "Let's just practice perfectly."
If we compare "SOLO"'s minimum promotion to BLACKPINK's promotion as a group, it is seen that Jennie truly relied on her popularity in South Korea mainly to debut. Sadly back in November, 2018, the Blink fandom relatively smaller and Jennie's international solo biased fanbase was also much smaller compared to now which left Jennie vulnerable to false agendas and h.a.t.e.f.u.l comments under her solo poster teasers as well on Twitter to this day.
"I wanted to express through the song Solo that everyone's existence alone is beautiful enough to let them shine."
Let's all rewatch her "SOLO" song below and feel it for yourself!