BLACKPINK members posing in colorful streetwear outfits against a white background

Blackpink

2016K-pop groupclassic

Published August 16, 2026

Blackpink is a four-member K-pop girl group formed by YG Entertainment in 2016, made up of Jisoo, Jennie, Rosé, and Lisa. The group broke through internationally in 2018 with the mini-album Square Up and its single Ddu-Du Ddu-Du, which charted on the Billboard Hot 100 and set 24-hour view records on YouTube.

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Overview

Blackpink, usually stylized in all caps as BLACKPINK, is a four-member South Korean girl group whose members are Jisoo, Jennie, Rosé, and Lisa1. The act was assembled by YG Entertainment, one of the so-called big three Korean labels alongside SM and JYP, and was the company's first girl group since 2NE11. Online, the group is as much a fandom engine as a music act, with fans calling themselves Blink, a blend of the words black and pink3.

The group's visual identity leans on the contrast in its name, mixing high-fashion styling with hard-hitting hip hop production and pop hooks1. Their YouTube singles routinely rack up hundreds of millions of views, and the members' individual social accounts add up to tens of millions of followers on top of the group's channels2.

Origin & Background

Platform
YG Entertainment (debut) / YouTube (viral spread)
Creator
YG Entertainment
Date
2016

YG Entertainment introduced the Blackpink lineup and name on June 29, 2016, ahead of their debut later that summer1. The group officially launched on August 8, 2016, with the single album Square One, containing the tracks Boombayah and Whistle, whose music videos went on to pass hundreds of millions of views each14.

A follow-up single, Square Two, arrived on November 1, 2016, adding Playing With Fire and Stay to their catalog, and the non-album track As If It's Your Last landed on June 22, 20171.

How It Spread

Blackpink's international breakout came with the mini-album Square Up, released on June 15, 2018, alongside lead single Ddu-Du Ddu-Du1. The song debuted at number 55 on the Billboard Hot 100, and Square Up topped the Billboard World Albums chart1. Its music video pulled 36.2 million views in its first 24 hours, the biggest music video debut of 2018 up to that point, behind only Taylor Swift's Look What You Made Me Do overall1.

Later in 2018, the group crossed further into Western pop with Kiss and Make Up, a collaboration with Dua Lipa that appeared on the deluxe edition of her self-titled album and peaked at number 93 on the Hot 1001. Their Japanese-market EP Blackpink and its re-release Re: Blackpink in March 2018 helped anchor them in another major market1.

Online, the fandom scaled alongside the music. Blink communities took hold on Reddit at r/blackpink3, the group's official YouTube channel passed 9.3 million subscribers by 2018, and the members' combined Instagram accounts crossed 27 million followers in the same period2. Coverage of the members also spilled into Urban Dictionary entries that catalogued their nicknames and inside jokes for fans new to K-pop5.

Frequently Asked Questions