At 24, LEE YOUNGJI has already won two of South Korea's most gruelling rap competitions, released a debut EP ‘16 FANTASY’ whose lead single topped the Circle charts and cracked the Billboard Global 200, hosted one of the region's most-watched YouTube shows, and built a fanbase that stretches well beyond the borders of K-pop's traditional orbit. Now, with her recent single "ROBOT" and a world tour rolling through Seoul, Osaka, Tokyo, Berlin, London and Paris later this year, she’s moving into a different register entirely.

What comes through in conversation is someone who has thought carefully about the gap between achievement and growth. Winning Show Me the Money 11, she says, taught her that a title changes nothing about the work that follows. The tour name LEE YOUNGJI 2.0 was a pressure she placed on herself, a way of forcing internal progress by making it public. By her own measure, she's already at version 2.3.

She is also extremely charismatic. When asked about No Prepare – her long-running YouTube series in which she drinks and talks with guests, with a candour that formal interview settings rarely produce – she doesn't reach for the expected answer about connection or communication. Instead she explains, matter-of-factly, that filming a drinking show immediately after becoming an adult has permanently rewired her social habits. Cameras or not, she runs the room the same way.

Her ambition, when it surfaces, is stated plainly. A debut full-length album in 2026. A desire to play at Coachella. Becoming someone who genuinely loves their own music. She calls them prophecies rather than goals – a small distinction that tells you quite a lot about how she operates.