BigBang's Taeyang confirms collaboration with Blackpink's Lisa by posting a teaser poster for Shoong! on social media, on April 19, 2023. – Photo: Instagram/YoungBae__
K-pop girl group Blackpink’s Lisa is set to appear on the comeback album of BigBang’s Taeyang.
The 34-year-old boy band member, whose Down To Earth EP drops next Tuesday, collaborated with Lisa, 26, on the single Shoong!, an energetic R&B number.
Taeyang shared the news and teaser photos on Instagram on Wednesday.
This is his first solo effort since 2017’s White Night and it has been highly anticipated since BigBang – one of the most influential K-pop groups of the early 2000s – released their reunion single Still Life in April 2022.
The collaboration with Lisa comes on the heels of the girl group making history as the first Asian and all-female band to headline Coachella last Saturday.
The quartet – comprising Jennie, Jisoo, Lisa and Rose – also appeared on Tuesday’s episode of The Late Late Show With James Corden in the popular Carpool Karaoke segment.
They jammed to songs from other girl groups, such as No Scrubs by TLC and Wannabe by the Spice Girls, as well as their own hits.
They also shared with Corden the gruelling training programme they went through, which included singing, dancing and language classes which ran from 11am to as late as 2am.
The training sessions took place every day, including on weekends, though they occasionally got a Sunday off.
Jennie, 27, said: “I think the competition was so intense, where we’d kind of forget that we’re missing some part of our lives. Because there’re different tests that we do, different videos that we have to shoot and it just keeps coming every day, every week.”
She added they did not have time to be homesick, even though they were teenagers at the time. “We weren’t really looking back to our homes or anything. We were just like, ‘Let’s survive this.’” – Suzanne Sng/The Straints Times/Asia News Network
