In August red billboards went up in Bangkok, New York, Los Angeles and Mexico City. No name, no photo, just one word in two languages: "HELLO สวัสดีค่ะ". A website showed the same greeting in more languages and counted down to the evening of 24 August. When the clock hit zero, LISA 리사 posted the answer on Instagram: a new single called "SaWaDiKa" and an EP, PRESS PLAY, for 23 October.
The EP came out on 23 October. Here is how she got there, and why the first song is worth a second listen.
A greeting as a title
The title comes from สวัสดีค่ะ, the Thai greeting that simply means hello. Turning the most everyday phrase in your language into a rap title is a confident move for a Thai artist who first became famous in Korea. "SaWaDiKa" came out on 3 September, 4 September in Asia, through LLOUD and RCA Records. It runs just over three minutes and puts her rapping front and centre again, over a hip-hop beat.
LISA wrote it with five co-writers. Thom Bridges and the duo Ojivolta produced it. Ojivolta's name may ring a bell: they also worked on ROSÉ's "On The Ground".
Bangkok as the set
The music video, directed by Bang Jae Yeob, was shot in Bangkok, the city where she grew up. It does not use the skyline as a postcard. It goes into the streets: Rong Mueang Road near Hua Lamphong, Soi Ngam Duphli in Sathorn, the art space Dib Bangkok. Muay Thai, tuk-tuks and Chula kites all pass by, and the styling mixes current fashion with Thai references.
Fans watched it fast. The video had 70.8 million views in its first 24 hours, just behind the 73.6 million of her solo debut "LALISA" in 2021, and passed 100 million a little over two days after release.
It does not use the skyline as a postcard. It goes into the streets.
A tuk-tuk at the VMAs
On 27 September LISA was at the MTV Video Music Awards in Los Angeles. She won Best Pop for "Dream", from her 2025 album Alter Ego, and was the first K-pop artist to win at that year's show. "All those late night dreams brought me here today," she said on stage.
Shortly after came the first live performance of "SaWaDiKa", with dancers, Thai signs on the set and a life-sized tuk-tuk. She danced around it and finished standing on top. By then the song had also spent two weeks on the Billboard Hot 100, entering at No. 69. That made it her third solo song with more than one week on the chart, after "MONEY" and "BORN AGAIN".
PRESS PLAY
PRESS PLAY has six songs: "SaWaDiKa", "V12", "Cobra", "Tarantino", "Cut U Off" and "Sweat". She told Jimmy Fallon the EP follows her "from my roots to where I am right now today", with every song its own character, and the title asks you to hear the six as one piece. "Tarantino" got its own video on release day: LISA in a hotel, trying to deliver a letter to her favourite director, and one fight after another on the way.
"SaWaDiKa" still opens the record, and it makes sense there. A greeting is where you start. If you only know LISA from BLACKPINK, our BLACKPINK page has the group's story, the members and the songs to start with.
Sources Khaosod English: SaWaDiKa passes 100 million views, Soompi: SaWaDiKa on the Hot 100, The Korea Herald: LISA at the VMAs, Korea JoongAng Daily: PRESS PLAY, Complex: the PRESS PLAY tracklist.
