The collaboration appears on Jennie’s debut solo album Ruby
Jennie and Dua Lipa are going all in for their new collaboration, “Handlebars.” The pair have shared the BRTH-directed video for the record, which appears on Jennie’s debut solo album Ruby. In the clip, Jennie and Lipa both fall under the spell of love, recounting their inability to resist while dancing through technicolor scenes.
“Handlebars” marks the first official musical collaboration between the two pop musicians since Jennie appeared on At Your Service, the podcast Lipa launched in 2022. During their conversation in July 2023, Jennie admitted that she found herself burning out during Blackpink’s early days due to the heavy volume of rap music she was recording.
“After our debut, we did like six songs where I would just rap like, seriously rap and along the way,” she explained at the time. “I kind of got confused because I came to realize that there’s a big side of me inside that loves to sing, but I actually never had the chance to really explore that as a trainee because I got told that I should be a rapper, you know?”
On Ruby, she finds room for the best of both. She raps on “Like Jennie,” sings on “Handlebars,” and lands in the middle on “ExtraL” with Doechii.
“The first solo full-length from Blackpink‘s Jennie floats in on a cloud. ‘Jane,’ the pillowy opener, begins with the singer cooing over a tinkly music-box accompaniment,” Rolling Stone‘s review of the record reads. “Guided by Jennie’s looped voice and the French producer FKJ, it slowly gains its sea legs, with a click-clacking beat rising and synths coming into sharper focus. But before the listener can get too comfortable, the sonic bed is flipped over by a mischievous giggle and the declaration ‘Come on, it’s gon’ be fuckin’ hard.’”
