Jamie, also known as Park Jimin, has had many personas throughout her K-pop career. With the release of her new single Pity Party , she has a new one – a dancing queen. The 24-year-old singer was born in South Korea but spent much of her youth in Thailand, before pursuing a singing career back home. Active as a singer and television personality since 2012, she left behind her previous stage name, Jimin, after parting ways with her former label JYP Entertainment in 2019 and, after joining Warner Music Korea, began using the name Jamie on 2020’s Numbers. “If I started as Jamie with Numbers, this is like another Jamie. A spicy, more strong, version of Jamie,” she tells the Post over a video call ahead of the single’s release on February 3. “Ooh, when I’m low/ Then I’m rising even stronger,” she sings in Pity Party . The accompanying music video, bold and full of creepy visuals, provides a dramatic backdrop for the R&B-tinged dance track. Pity Party is Jamie’s first solo release in over 12 months and comes after a year of collaborations with the likes of US rappers Saweetie and Doja Cat, French DJ David Guetta and US singer Ty Dolla $ign. “Last year was all about featuring, so this year is going to be different. I’m working really hard with my team. After this single comes out, I’m starting to work on an album that I can see and sell, and fans can see what work I’ve been doing.” She pauses. “It’s going to come out this year, for sure.” Pity Party is in English, which Jamie is more comfortable singing in than Korean, and she feels stylistically it may resonate with international audiences more than Korean ones. K-pop girl group StayC on why they’re a hit with Gen Z music fans Doing things on her own terms was important for the singer. “Fans can feel when you don’t like what you’re doing, and I pick songs that I like and want to be doing. Maybe only half the people who listen to it will like it, but this is something I wanted to do, so I don’t really care, to be honest.” When Jamie has a rough time in real life, her pity parties bear little resemblance to the one depicted in her music video. Still, one thing is the same – dancing. Her favourite thing to do, after a good cry, is to dance with her friends at clubs. “I would just call my friends, talk about it and cry, and go dancing. If there was no Covid-19 , I’m honestly a party girl.” Jamie, who won the first season of competition television show K-pop Star in 2011, has spent most of her career as a vocalist who doesn’t dance onstage. The singer felt Pity Party was a chance to get back into dancing by incorporating choreography in her performances. She is not a typical K-pop idol in that her performances don’t incorporate highly choreographed dances of the kind K-pop is often associated with. But she is friends with many of them and she admits it was a dream of hers when she was young to be a performance artist who can sing and dance. “I have big respect for the idols out there that do it all at the same time.” Who are IVE, rookie K-pop girl group with 60 million YouTube views? Jamie, who is dealing with some physical issues and is focusing on physiotherapy and rehabilitation, worked with a team of dancers to come up with choreography she was comfortable with. Ultimately, she feels it was a good, but tough, experience. “This project was not really easy. I don’t really dance – I sing. But from the beginning, it felt like I’m starting anew. It wasn’t a really simple thing to do, but the song is what I wanted to do and I cannot imagine standing there and not dancing.” Would Jamie, in an alternative reality, be happy as a K-pop idol, maybe a member of a popular girl group? “My personality, if I was an idol, I think would be a big issue all the time,” she reflects. “I’m a straightforward person, and [in a group] you may have to keep your feelings to yourself. I’d probably just be waiting for my contract to end, and then go off on my own.” This straightforward attitude is pervasive in Pity Party, and comes across in real life, too, as Jamie isn’t one to hold back from what she wants to do or say. The year began with the singer calling out a friend for using her as the butt of a joke – singer-songwriter Jae Park called her a “thot” (a derogatory term for a woman who has multiple casual sexual encounters) during a live-stream. On January 9 she took to social media to express her frustration at being made the butt of a joke, writing: “I hate that we as women have to be subjected to mens (sic) humor to appease incels on the internet period.” (Incel means a man who is involuntarily celibate.) I hate that we as women have to be subjected to mens humor to appease incels on the internet period — JIMINxJAMIE (@jiminpark07) January 9, 2022 Though the two have cleared the air, both privately and publicly, Jamie says it’s simply the highest-profile incident of many where she’s felt the need to speak up for herself. “It was a way of me telling everyone that even though he’s my friend, this is something not right,” she says. “This is not funny. This is very serious. These kind of jokes you make are not funny.” Jamie says she’s also taken to calling out the men who send her sexual messages over social media. “The negative behaviour has been decreasing as I’ve been sharing my emotions and questioning those sending me sexual harassment, [asking] ‘What’s wrong with you?’ I didn’t just delete or block them, I’ve told them ‘you should stop doing that’. “I felt like he’d probably do it to another woman if I didn’t say something.” Just a wakeup call for Jae and for his future I do really want him to go for the right direction , and as a friend I wanted him to know this is something he needs to rethink and put in action. I told him everything about how I felt and he felt awful about it https://t.co/MaVju03sTO — JIMINxJAMIE (@jiminpark07) January 20, 2022 Speaking up for herself has been something Jamie has cultivated after years of being in the spotlight since her first appearance on K-pop Star . She admits her personality isn’t for everyone, but says that’s OK. “Actively acting in a way to try to make people like me [would] be wrong for me,” she says. “I’m just trying to be myself, and if you think I’m a good person, thank you very much.”