APT.

The first time ROSÉ was interviewed about her debut solo album, she burst into tears. “I ended up crying for the whole 30 minutes,” the K-pop singer recounts to Apple Music’s Zane Lowe. “It was not a smooth ride, and it just showed how much time and effort and blood, sweat, and tears I actually did put into it.” ROSÉ was born in New Zealand to Korean parents and raised in Australia, shooting to global fame in 2016 as one-fourth of the mega-successful girl group BLACKPINK. The 12-track rosie, which is what she’s called by her friends and loved ones, is, as she says, both a “time capsule” and a “therapy session”—a raw chronicle of her twenties as she’s still experiencing them, and an opportunity to be more personal than K-pop artists often get to be. “It's just what I talk about with my friends and family, put into an album so that we can all share it and hopefully my fans feel closer to me,” she says. On “toxic till the end,” the singer makes a clear mid-track announcement—“Ladies and gentlemen/I present to you the ex”—before getting even more vulnerable with the world: “I’ll never forgive you for one thing, my dear/You wasted my prettiest years.” While much of rosie explores the complexities of romantic heartbreak, ROSÉ also delves into other, lighter subjects. “APT.,” a collaboration with Bruno Mars, gets its name from a popular Korean drinking game ROSÉ played in her early twenties. The infinitely energetic pop-rock track shot to the top of the global pop charts upon its release, ushering in rosie along with the subsequent pre-release track “number one girl,” co-written and co-produced by Mars. In the latter, ROSÉ recounts the emotional spiral brought about by a night spent scrolling through social media judgments. Though the pop piano ballad is about superstardom (“Tell me that I’m special/Tell me I look pretty/Tell me I’m a little angel/Sweetheart of your city”), it also “represents every toxic relationship,” she says. While long work hours and a life in the public eye may weigh on ROSÉ, as evidenced by some of rosie’s most visceral moments, music is another one of ROSÉ’s love stories. “At the end of the day, it’s what I love to do,” she says, “and that’s the only thing that makes me feel alive and a person.”