Lisa made her first solo carry Thailand in every detail
In 2021, BLACKPINK’s Lisa was preparing her first solo release and made a clear decision: if a song carried her real name, it would carry Thailand too.
That name already held an unlikely story. Lisa was born Pranpriya Manobal. After her 2010 audition for YG Entertainment, the company did not call immediately. Her mother consulted a fortune teller, who advised changing her name to Lalisa. Lisa later recalled that YG called about a week after she changed it.
Years later, producer Teddy Park suggested building her solo chorus around that name. Lisa’s first reaction was wonderfully ordinary: would repeating “Lalisa” over and over sound weird?
They tested it. The hook stayed.
But Lisa wanted the song to say more than her name. She told Teddy she wanted Thai sounds in the track because her first solo should let fans around the world know where she came from. He added traditional Thai elements to the dance break.
Lisa carried that choice into the choreography, styling and set. The darker hip-hop scenes suddenly give way to gold. She appears on a throne in a hand-finished outfit made by Thai fashion house Asava, using brocade silk with traditional patterns from Lamphun province.
Her tall headpiece was created by Thai designer Prapakas Angsusingha and inspired by headwear used in traditional dance. Sarran Youkongdee designed the jasmine-shaped gold ear cuff. Behind Lisa, the set draws from Phanom Rung, the sandstone temple complex in Buriram—the province where she grew up.
That is what makes the transformation so satisfying. Lisa did not simply put on one Thai outfit after everything else had been decided. She asked for Thailand in the sound, adjusted details in the dance and helped carry the idea through the visuals.
The response escaped the screen almost immediately. Within days of the video’s release, sellers at a Bangkok market told Reuters that demand for traditional outfits and gold headpieces had jumped. One carefully built sequence had sent people looking more closely at the craft behind it (and yes, the tiny smile when Lisa sees the finished gold look is everything).
The title began with a name Lisa once worried might sound strange in a chorus. It ended with that name beside Thai silk, Thai designers, Buriram’s history and a dance break shaped around the country she wanted the world to see.