What Comes After K-POP? LISA Is Building on the Industry That Made Her

BLACKPINK's LISA became a global star through K-POP. But looking at her recent solo career, the label "K-POP star" alone is becoming less sufficient to describe where she is now. She is increasingly expanding her career into the wider pop market.

At the recent 2026 MTV Video Music Awards, LISA performed "SaWaDiKa" and took home Best Pop. The VMAs have a separate Best K-pop category, but LISA competed alongside global pop stars including Taylor Swift and Ariana Grande. It was a telling sign of how far her solo career has expanded.

That career began to take a different shape after LISA ended her individual contract with YG Entertainment. In 2024, she established her own company, LLOUD, and later partnered with RCA Records for her solo releases while retaining ownership of her master recordings.

Her activities have since expanded quickly. Her first full-length album, "Alter Ego," reached No. 7 on the Billboard 200, and she performed at Coachella as a solo artist. She also made her acting debut in the third season of HBO's "The White Lotus" and is set to hold her "VIVA LA LISA" residency at The Colosseum at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas in November.

In her recent documentary "Always Lalisa," LISA looked back on a very different period of her career. She entered YG's trainee system at 14 and spent five years learning dance, singing, rap and languages before her debut. She has said that at the time, she found it difficult to voice her opinions or express what she was thinking. Monthly evaluations, where trainees performed in front of company officials and faced the possibility of being cut, also brought considerable pressure at a young age.

However, LISA does not look back on those years only negatively. She has credited those experiences with making her who she is today and recalled enjoying the years she spent learning and creating with the other BLACKPINK members.

What has changed is who decides what comes next. Speaking about the period after establishing LLOUD, LISA said she was initially scared because there was no longer anyone telling her what to do or which path to take. As she began making those decisions herself, she said she gradually gained confidence and came to see her solo career as only just beginning.

LISA is not the only artist to build on a K-POP career while expanding in her own direction. GOT7's Jackson Wang established TEAM WANG in 2017 and has since developed a solo career spanning China and the wider global market. More recently, he signed a global management deal with Roc Nation, founded by Jay-Z, while continuing his music activities through TEAM WANG Records.

EXO's LAY took a similar route earlier in his career. He established a personal studio for his activities in China and later founded Chromosome Entertainment Group, building an independent career as a singer and producer. His exclusive contract with SM Entertainment ended in 2022, but his ties to EXO have continued. He also participated in the group's 2026 album "Reverxe."

Their individual careers do not necessarily represent a break from K-POP. LISA has said she wants to continue performing with BLACKPINK even when she is 50, while Jackson remains a GOT7 member and participated in the group's 2025 album "Winter Heptagon." Their group and solo careers can exist on different tracks, allowing them to remain part of K-POP groups while pursuing individual careers on a wider stage.

Their ability to do so is partly rooted in what they gained from K-POP. Years of training gave them performance experience, while their group careers brought international recognition and established global fandoms. Rather than starting over, they are building on a foundation that K-POP helped create.

LISA, Jackson and LAY should not be treated as evidence of a single industry-wide trend. They made their choices for different reasons and have pursued different markets. But those choices are taking place at a time when K-POP itself can give an artist worldwide recognition and a global audience. Success within K-POP can now provide the resources and reach to pursue opportunities well beyond an artist's original market.

That is one of the less obvious results of K-POP's globalization. The industry has grown from trying to send its stars into the global market to producing artists who are already global when they begin deciding what comes next. For some, that may mean starting a company, working with an overseas label, entering a new market or moving into another field entirely.

LISA's path reflects that shift. She has not traded BLACKPINK for a global solo career, but has found room for both. K-POP remains part of who she is as an artist, but it no longer defines the limits of where her career can go. For LISA, it was not only the destination. It was also the starting point.