LISA is a global superstar of boundless talents: K-pop idol, dance icon, rapper, fashionista, and newly-minted actress in the celebrated HBO series "The White Lotus." Adding to her bonafides, LISA can now count herself as a solo artist thanks to her debut solo album, Alter Ego.
While her fellow BLACKPINK members ROSÉ and JENNIE chose to get personal with the intimate titles of their own respective solo projects — 2024’s record-breaking rosie and JENNIE's forthcoming Ruby — LISA's Alter Ego follows a more conceptual approach.
"I was trying so many different kinds of music styles while I was recording," the K-pop idol explained in a January interview with the U.K.’s Capital Breakfast. "I was like, ‘Oh, well I’ve never done this kind of stuff before, but it sounds great. Why not just kind of, like, put all the different styles into the album and call it Alter Ego?’"
So, like the Sasha Fierces, Roman Polanskis, Tina Snows, Biancas and Yüyi the Mermaids that came before her, LISA employs five personas across Alter Ego — each tapping into a different side of her personality. Throughout, LISA mines the untapped depths of her own creativity, even releasing a 56-page graphic novel titled Alter Ego: The Official Comic to serve as a visual companion to the studio set.
Read more: Breaking Down Every Solo Act From BLACKPINK: From Jennie's "Solo" To ROSÉ's 'Rosie'
The move makes total creative sense for the rapper born Lalisa Manobal (and known affectionately to her "White Lotus" co-stars as the "Beyoncé of Thailand"). LISA already introduced herself by name with her 2021 single album Lalisa and its feisty, self-assured title track, so why not branch out by inventing new characters complete with different looks, color auras and sonic signatures?
In the lead-up to the album’s full unveiling on Feb. 28, LISA certainly showed off a commitment to musical versatility, pivoting effortlessly from the unapologetic grandstanding of "Rockstar" to Rosalía collab "New Woman" and the romantic "Moonlit Floor (Kiss Me)," and back to star-studded girl power anthem "Born Again" — a last-minute single featuring Doja Cat and RAYE that’s not included on the standard physical edition of the LP.
There’s much to explore across the album’s 15 total songs, including new collaborations with Megan Thee Stallion, Future and Tyla, solo songs taken over by one unforgettable alter ego after another, and more. Below, dive into five major takeaways from the multifaceted quintet of personalities that inhabit LISA’s debut solo album.
It’s Not Hype, She’s A Rockstar
Fans met the first of LISA’s alter egos, ROXI, in the music video for the album’s lead single "Rockstar," which peaked at No. 70 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the summer of 2024.
Strutting through the dark streets of Bangkok’s Chinatown, Roxi rapped, "Gold teeth sittin’ on the dash, she a rockstar/ Make your favorite singer wanna rap, baby, la, la/ ‘Lisa, can you teach me Japanese?’ I said, ‘Hai, hai’/ That’s my life, life, baby, I’m a rockstar."
Much of ALTER EGO favors bombastic hip-hop beats and blown-out bass rather than the electric guitar Roxi cradles in her official portrait. Yet the alter ego’s swagger and unwavering confidence remains a palpable undercurrent throughout the album — proof that LISA’s rockstar status is a state of being that electrifies the entire project.
A Girl Can Dream
"Moonlit Floor (Kiss Me)" is a breezy outlier in an album dominated by hip-hop and trap stylings, yet it serves an important purpose. The lovestruck ditty — with its interpolation of Sixpence None the Richer’s GRAMMY-nominated 1997 ballad "Kiss Me" — introduces fans to SUNNI, LISA’s soft and dreamy singer/songwriter persona.
The French-loving alter ego’s charms were on full display last fall when the singer performed "Moonlit Floor" at the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show 2024. Dressed in a lacy black bodysuit and pair of molten angel wings, she confessed, "Green-eyed French boy got me trippin’/ On that accent off your lips/ How your tongue do all those tricks?/ How you know just where to/ Kiss me under the Paris twilight/ Kiss me out on the moonlit floor."
SUNNI’s warm presence re-emerges on the wistful ballad "Dream," which closes out the 12-song tracklist of the album’s standard edition. Over twinkling piano, LISA-as-SUNNI looks back with regret on a lost love affair from years past. "Dream" transports listeners to a fateful night in Tokyo, ending Alter Ego on an introspective note filled with bittersweet sentimentality.
She’s A New Woman
LISA’s third alter ego, the candy-colored KIKI, is a pure product of the millennium with a cherry slurpee in one hand and a stack of burned CDs in the other.
In retrospect, KIKI clearly left a stamp on the music video for second single "New Woman" (The flip phones! The digital cameras! Theclyrical reference to "Kiss From a Rose"!), but the Y2K-obsessed persona is felt even stronger on "Rapunzel," a collaboration with Megan Thee Stallion, and early album cut "Elastigirl."
"Rapunzel" appears as a KIKI solo track on the standard version of Alter Ego, but Meg joins the party by gleefully announcing, "It’s the Hot Girl Coach and LISA!" at the top of the remix on the digital version. Later, the three-time GRAMMY winner brags, "Damn I might be too pretty/ What they gonna do with me?/ Booty so big, ass sittin’ up like new titties" in between LISA’s references to gold teeth, Himalayan incense and lavish living.
Elsewhere, LISA whips up clever superhero motifs on the tensile "Elastigirl," leaning fully into Y2K culture by drawing comparisons to Mr. Incredible and Elastigirl of Pixar’s beloved animated smash The Incredibles, and Reed Richards of the Fantastic Four, who was portrayed by Ioan Gruffudd in 2005’s Fantastic Four and 2007’s Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (opposite Jessica Alba, Chris Evans and Michael Chiklis) long before the team was rebooted and folded back into the Marvel Cinematic Universe for this summer’s upcoming The Fantastic Four: The First Steps.
Shut Up And Watch Her Go
The fiery-haired SPEEDI represents LISA at her most "souped-up and supercharged," and she hits the gas the hardest on the high-octane "Lifestyle."
The fast-moving track sends Lillies on a globe-trotting journey from L.A. to Bangkok to Abu Dhabi as LISA’s "flashy, fancy, classy, nasty" speed demon alter ego revels in a life of fast cars, drop tops and diamonds on TikTok.
With SPEEDI in the driver’s seat, LISA may live life constantly in overdrive with "that bass bass jumpin’" — NOS kit included. Her magnetic impact lingers long after she’s sped off into the sunset as she boasts, "Every time I walk by, you turn to your friend/ And you ask them, ‘Mmm, did you see her?’/ Had to put the shades on, she was, like, blinding/ She was, like, something like a diamond/ Something just struck me, she was like lightning/ I think she gave me a fever." What can she say? It’s just her lifestyle…
She’s A Proper Villain
LISA’s fifth and final alter ego, VIXI, is the baddest of the bunch. According to her official bio, the red-hot vixen is unafraid to embrace her dark side, writing, "I’m too busy living in my villain era, let the haters hate. So, what’s it gonna be — friend or foe? Are you rolling with me or am I running you over?"
VIXI takes control on the album’s latest focus track — the gleefully destructive "FXCK UP THE WORLD." One version of the banger gets an all-star guest assist from a mumble-mouthed Future as LISA spits, "Rappin’ like my lease up, I told them that I’m focused/ They want the old LISA, then listen to my old s–/ Rappin’ like a deep cut, flowin’ like the ocean/ They want the old LISA, then listen to my old s–."
However, it’s crystal clear that VIXI can get up to no good all on her own. The single’s accompanying music video shows the baddie busting out of an asylum and causing chaos as she roams the streets like a deranged Batman villain on the verge of world domination. Injected with flashes of colorful anime, the cinematic clip also hints that all of LISA’s alter egos are crucial parts of the greater whole. As VIXI ties down one of the therapists who’d held her hostage and subjects him to a psychedelic orange gas, she suddenly turns 2-D, transforming in rapid succession into animated versions of SUNNI, KIKI, ROXI and SPEEDI.
"They watch me on the stages, they watch me goin’ crazy/ I’m ‘bout to make ‘em pick the pieces up, then lock ‘em in the cages," VIXI raps as her fellow alter egos take turns grabbing the spotlight — evidence that, no matter which persona she feels like channeling on any given day, LISA can’t be confined to a single box as she continues to make her mark on music history.