Celebrity

Lee Hi talks about the difference between the past and the recent Lee Hi

VICE spoke with singer Lee Hi about her life and music.

A room with pink wallpaper decorated with hippie-style stickers, posters of singers who dominated the 1990s as well as record players.

This is the first scene in the music video for the title song “Red Lipstick” of the third full-length album released by singer Lee Hi last year.

You don’t know exactly what decade she’s in, but are immediately transported to a nostalgic retro wonderland once she smacks her lips and the needle drops on the groovy track. The combination of Lee Hi and retro is not unfamiliar. It is because she has enjoyed singing old songs since her debut. In an interview with VICE, she explained, “I’ve covered old songs many times since my debut. I was inspired by Korean singers in the past, so I made a completely retro title song.”

Lee Hi first made her first appearance on SBS’s audition program “K-pop Star” in 2012 when she was 16 years old. Since then, she has established herself as a solo female singer in the K-pop industry, which is full of idols. She released two albums in 2013 and 2016 under her first agency YG Entertainment. Lee Hi joined her new agency AOMG in 2020 after the contract with YG ended. And last year, she appeared in front of the public as both a singer and a human being.

Lee Hi said, “All the songs in my albums, whether I’ve written or picked up, are true representations of how I’ve lived and how I feel. I don’t make conscious efforts to try to change or shed my old self. I believe you can do a certain type of music only at a certain age. I’ve got new stories that I can tell only for the time being.”

The 10-track album that dropped in September 2021 talks about love and the roller coaster of emotions one feels with it. Instead of something diaristic, these shifts are more palpable sonically, starting with the darkly romantic “Savior” and ending with the soft ballad “ONLY”. The title song is track 5. 

Lee Hi

Lee Hi sang the title song with singer Yoon Mi-rae. The female singer recalled drawing inspiration from the R&B and hip-hop duo Tashannie, whose member Yoon Mi-rae she ended up collaborating with on the track. She confessed, “While writing the song, I left some sections blank, only for her, and she agreed to work with me. The song came out perfectly with a feature from her, as we had in mind.”

Like Tashannie and the posters in her “Red Lipstick” bedroom, Lee Hi counts music icons from her childhood as inspirations. They’re who you’d expect someone who grew up in the 1990s would idolize, no matter where they are in the world: Mariah Carey, Beyoncé and Janet Jackson. Her fascination with these artists goes beyond fandom. Outside the four walls of a studio, Lee Hi remains absorbed with the life stories of musicians, watching documentaries about Britney Spears, Taylor Swift and Lady Gaga in her free time. She said, “Singers singing on stage come across as special and seem far away, but in fact, they’re just like ordinary people. I can certainly relate to them backstage because I see myself in a similar situation.”

Lee Hi

Now, like the musicians she loves, Lee Hi shares a more personal side of herself with the help of a camera, documenting parts of her life in vlogs.

During the interview, she revealed a fascination with street cats, cravings for coconut donuts and an all-too-relatable preoccupation with “Squid Game“. In particular, she binge-watched the show in just a day. Lee Hi shared, “If I participated in the game with no particular goal in mind, I’d probably be killed early. On the other hand, if I were under pressure and desperate enough like the characters in the show, I’d last longer.”

What she wants the most right now is to see fans again and perhaps perform on stage, once the pandemic is over. 

“I’m not one of those who dream of the far future, but rather focus on the present, on each task every day.”

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