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It’s easy to forget how new America’s current K-pop boom is. Before 2018, the genre didn’t come close to hitting No. 1 on the Billboard 200. But since 2022, at least four projects have topped the chart each year. Now, it’s undergoing its next challenge: releasing successful solo projects from two of its biggest acts, BTS and Blackpink. While BTS’s approach was shaped by mandatory military service, resulting in a staggered release schedule over a three-year span, Blackpink has been on an all-out blitz since December, with Jennie, Lisa, Jisoo, and Rosé each dropping debuts.
The results have been varied. Some have struggled to send songs to the Hot 100 or keep their albums on the charts after a few weeks. (Though that’s not entirely under their control; Jin’s enlistment prevented him from promoting his single “The Astronaut” for nearly two years.) Others have shown major signs of success: Jimin’s “Who” just broke a Hot 100 record and Rosé’s “APT.” is one of the biggest hits of 2025. That’s on top of the earlier returns from Jungkook, who earned three top-five hits off his album Golden in 2023. With 14 releases since 2022, BTS and Blackpink members have provided a blueprint for future K-pop performers looking to break out on their own in America.
Don’t worry about overwhelming the market
When BTS’s members went solo, Big Hit was careful to give each their moment to shine, beginning with J-Hope’s 2022 album, Jack in the Box. Occasionally, the plan paid off: J-Hope and Jungkook nabbed history-making spots on the Lollapalooza and Global Citizen Festival lineups, while Jimin and Jungkook each earned Hot 100 No. 1s. But other members barely splashed beyond their release week or experienced diminishing returns, including RM, whose 2024 album, Right Place, Wrong Person, peaked with nearly 30,000 fewer units than his 2022 album, Indigo.
The Blackpink girls took the opposite approach: Over the past four months, they each dropped a project. It’s hard to tell how calculated of a strategy this was, since the members have separate American label partners (they remain co-signed with Blackpink’s label, YG Entertainment), but it still worked in their favor. The stacked rollouts kept Blackpink’s name buzzing from fall into winter, even though they hadn’t performed or released music as a group since 2023. They later capitalized on that attention by announcing a Blackpink comeback tour in mid-February.
A Western collaborator can help guide the way
One of the easiest ways to break into a new market: Recruit someone who’s already done it. BTS and Blackpink employed this strategy. BTS earned its first top-40 hit with Steve Aoki’s remix of “Mic Drop” and kept the momentum up by working with Nicki Minaj, Lauv, and Halsey, while Blackpink’s Selena Gomez linkup “Ice Cream” remains the group’s best Hot 100 showing, at No. 13.
Jungkook first showed this move could extend to soloists when he teamed with Latto for “Seven.” Not only did it debut at No. 1, outperforming his previous No. 22 entrance for solo track “Left and Right,” it beat out a uniquely American challenger, Jason Aldean’s “Try That in a Small Town.” Following another collab with Jack Harlow on “3D,” Jungkook was primed for a top-five debut on his own with “Standing Next to You.”
It also helps to pick the right artist at the right time, like Jungkook did with Latto, who’d just broken out with her own song “Big Energy.” Jennie bet on Doechii with “ExtraL,” and dropped it right as the rapper’s popularity was cresting. The track debuted at No. 75, Jennie’s highest showing off her solo album, Ruby — and more than 20 spots higher than her previous single “Love Hangover” with Dominic Fike, who had only appeared on the Hot 100 once (with his single “Mona Lisa” at No. 89). And while Bruno Mars is always a sure bet, Rosé released “APT.” after the runaway success of his Lady Gaga duet, “Die With a Smile,” which helped carry “APT.” to the top five and get it into radio rotation. By contrast, Jisoo’s debut EP Amortage didn’t feature a single guest, Western or otherwise. “Earthquake” may have been the best-selling song in the world when it came out, but it never hit in the U.S., where Jisoo hadn’t yet made a name for herself, instead focusing on Korean success with roles in the comedy series Newtopia and upcoming Boyfriend on Demand.
Keep an ear to the American charts
Jimin became the first K-pop soloist to score a No. 1 debut on the Hot 100 in 2023, on the heels of an impressive 254,000 units sold for his single “Like Crazy.” But a week later, the song made more unfortunate chart history when it plummeted to No. 45, then the largest drop for a No. 1 ever. The song’s dreamy electronic palette, crafted by K-pop producers Pdogg and Ghstloop, was enough to keep fans engaged but not to appeal to more casual listeners on streaming or get any American-radio traction. A year later, Jimin’s “Who” debuted at No. 14 with another strong sales week — then rose to No. 12 in its second week, and continued to stick around afterward. Pdogg and Ghstloop once again produced the song, but this time, Jimin also tapped Jon Bellion, who’d written hits for Justin Bieber and Miley Cyrus. The hook was anchored by a furiously strummed acoustic guitar, aligning with the instrument’s recent revival on the American charts via country crossovers and songs like “Die With a Smile.” (Jimin even posed with a guitar in promo photos.) That worked: The song caught on with American listeners on streaming and even had a run on U.S. pop radio, on its way to becoming the longest-running K-pop song on the Hot 100, at 33 weeks. “APT.” approached its sound in similar fashion, interpolating Toni Basil’s percussive ’80s hit “Mickey” — at a time when interpolations and the ’80s are ruling the charts — into a pop-punkish song that doesn’t sound too far off from Olivia Rodrigo.
Show some personality!
It’s easier for new listeners to become interested in solo careers when they know what distinguishes each member. Take Suga, who’s been developing his alter ego Agust D outside BTS for years, releasing much harder hip-hop than BTS’s pop-rap. He put out his first mixtape in 2016, allowing him to build a solo fan base early; by 2023, his debut album, D-Day, debuted at No. 2 with 140,000 units, making him the second BTS member to post a six-figure week in the U.S. after Jimin. Members like J-Hope and V also differentiated themselves from the band’s usual output, following their interests in retro hip-hop and jazzy R&B, respectively, on Jack in the Box and Layover.
On the Blackpink side, Lisa developed a quasi-bad-girl image on her song “Rockstar,” rapping about making boys “chase me for the thrill” and performing the track surrounded by harnessed, muscular male dancers at last fall’s VMAs. She carried the theme onto her later single “Fxck Up the World,” where she rapped about being a “proper villain” with toxic king Future. Rosé further embraced confessionalist singer-songwriter writing, baring her feelings about a bad breakup across her album Rosie, especially on songs like “toxic till the end.” (The guy was “jealous and possessive” and “wasted my prettiest years,” she sings.) And while Jisoo crafted an image as a hopeless romantic on her Valentine’s Day release, Amortage, Jennie leaned into her reputation as the group’s fashionista, rapping “Who wanna rock like Jennie? / Get your hair done, nails done like Jennie,” on her single “Like Jennie.”
Don’t be afraid to break the purity rules
K-pop can often promote stringent ideas of purity, but some of the most successful solo projects have strayed from that. Rosé told Vogue she “freaked out” while singing about a drinking game on “APT.,” and even tried to get her team to delete the song after she’d recorded it. Good thing they talked her out of it. Not only is the song a hit in the U.S., it took off in South Korea and Japan, despite its subject matter. So did Jungkook’s “Seven,” thanks to a clean version that swapped the “fuckin’ you right, seven days a week” hook for “lovin’” and still hit No. 2 in South Korea. Not that K-pop artists need to be sexy to sell (Jimin’s comparatively chaste “Like Crazy” also hit No. 1 on the “Hot 100”). Rather, it’s about soloists not restricting themselves and their opportunities. Was RM really supposed to hang up when Megan Thee Stallion called?
