Killin’ It Girl (feat.. GloRilla) is j-Hope’s third single release of 2025. The first Sweet Dreams (feat. Miguel) dropped on March 7, 2025, and the second MONA LISA was released exactly two weeks later on March 21, 2025. The current single marks the climax of the artist’s hugely successful Hope on the Stage Tour, which kicked off at the KSPO Dome in Seoul on February 28, ending with two home concerts at Goyang Stadium in Seoul, 13-14 June. 

At 2 minutes 48 seconds, Killin’ It Girl does not outstay its welcome, and its rhythmic beat and use of repetition helps to construct a catchy tune devoted to female empowerment. It is like removing the mask from Mona Lisa to expose the enigmatic power lying beneath the veil of conventional femininity.

There is also no obtuse language here; the song does not have multiple meanings and thereby does not play on the hybridity of K-pop lyrically, although the collaboration itself affirms the close relationship between African-American and Korean music. Composed of two verses, the obligatory intro: “You are now / Tuned in / To the one and the only / j-hope”,  chorus x 3, and outro (which is basically a repetition of lines from the chorus), it is one of those hip-hop tracks which are made for the club, and live performances.

Lyrically, it is not the most interesting of his recent solo releases. This is not necessarily a criticism, but it is more about the construction of the song and its purpose, which lies in its performance. At the beginning of Verse One, the lyrics fuse together Korea and the US, creating continuity despite geographical and linguistic differences: “Runway ready, gotta get some confetti / ‘Cause we gotta celebrate like it’s your birthday (Woo) / Looking like a twenty, from Korea to Miami / Oh, I wanna get with you in the worst way”.  

GloRilla’s distinctive rap style and assertive femininity move the song away from being another hip-hop song dedicated to women’s visuality or “to-be-looked-at-ness” as constitutive of their identity, removing their agency from the equation in the process. Instead, the song speaks of empowerment, and refusal to conform to patriarchal norms; “He said I be killin’ it, I said I do this everyday / Money talk lil’ baby, I can’t hear you, what’d you say? / There go the yellow tape, now, sit back and pay attention / And let me show you how to slay”, GloRilla’s verse centers the track in women’s liberation from appropriate femininity as dictated by male desire. The solo version demonstrates the importance of the collaboration to the track, as it becomes a more typical homage to female beauty without her presence and power. 

The accompanying music video directed by Cody Critcheloe is a stunning piece of visual art, which plays with gender binaries. The video begins with j-hope on the ground, as the camera switches angles, with the artist looking directly at the camera lens. Utilising a punk aesthetic, as constructed through black-and-white cinematography and costume, and embodied through bodily posture and expression, the music video confronts and challenges the viewer to rethink gendered expectations. When the action moves to GloRilla, she is occupying the vertical, as opposed to the horizontal, which places the power in the hands of the woman, and outside of visuality as constitutive of appropriate femininity. The cinematic palette transforms into colour for the final chorus and dance break, foregrounding j-hope’s artistry.

Killin’ It Girl is a fun track, and while not perhaps as complex as some of his other work, as a performance piece, it will work very well on stage.

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Written by Dr Colette Balmain

Featured image courtesy of BIGHIT MUSIC

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