‘Fang Dance,’ Taking Risks and a Global Tour: What We Learned About Blackpink’s ‘Born Pink’ Era

It’s been nearly two years since their last comeback as a group and the four members of Blackpink —Jisoo, Jennie, Rosé and Lisa — are ready to kick off a brand new era. The South Korean pop group held a global press conference on Friday Korea time to share more news about their highly-anticipated sophomore LP Born Pink, and its pre-release single, “Pink Venom.”

Born Pink will be Blackpink’s first release after their 2020 debut LP The Album. The group’s label YG Entertainment began teasing the project on July 31 with the official trailer video, which unveiled the album’s title and September release. The company also announced that in October, Blackpink will be embarking on the largest world tour by a girl group in K-pop history, starting with two dates in Seoul. This announcement was followed by individual teasers for each member and finally the music video teaser for “Pink Venom” which dropped on August 16th.

According to Blackpink, “Pink Venom” was chosen as the pre-release single because the track expresses their identity as a group the best. “Since our album’s title is Born Pink, we wanted to relay our identity in the song as much as we could,” said Jennie. “Since ‘pink’ and ‘venom’ have contradicting images, we thought they were kind of reminiscent of us.” Composed by Blackpink’s long-time collaborators and producers Teddy Park, R. Tee, 24 and IDO, the single’s soundscape was described as a blend of hip-hop and traditional Korean instrumentals. “I remember the first time I listened to the song in our studio,” recalled Rosé. “It had a very new sound, which we haven’t tried before. I just wanted to record the song right away and show the song’s performance to our fans. I’m so excited for it.”

The music video for “Pink Venom” finds Blackpink experimenting with new fashion, styling and intricate choreography as well as conceptual sets. It is reportedly the most expensive music video the group’s label YG Entertainment has ever produced. “In terms of our music video, there’s an impactful dance break at the end, and the set is just amazing,” shared Lisa. “Our makeup, styling and dance performances are also very impressive and powerful.” The members demonstrated the key point of the choreography, a move titled ‘Fang Dance’ which they hope fans will recreate on YouTube and social media after the track’s release.

While they were careful about not giving away too many details about Born Pink, Blackpink answered Rolling Stone India‘s question about the core message of the album, with Jennie explaining, “Just like the album’s title Born Pink, we wanted to express Blackpink’s essence — born to be Blackpink. We wanted to represent who we are, clearly.” With Blackpink’s track record of breaking records and reaching new milestones on charts around the globe with each new release, several questions from the media revolved around the members’ goals for this album; Rosé, however, shared that it wasn’t their priority. “Rather than breaking records, we have really focused on our new songs,” she explained, adding that Blackpink’s goal will always be to make music that their fans fall in love with.

Regarding their Born Pink World Tour, Jisoo stated, “We are ready to give everything we have,” adding that it’s been way too long since they’ve seen their fans and they’re looking forward to being onstage again. The tour will feature a much longer set list than previous shows, brand new stages and choreography. “Since it’s our first one in a very long time, we’d like to focus on our originality and include a lot of new songs,” said Jennie. As of now, a total of 36 dates have been announced for Asia, the U.S., Europe, and Australia with more to come.

As the press conference wrapped up, Blackpink thanked their fans for the tremendous support they have received since their debut and expressed their excitement at finally being able to tour again. “It was our sixth anniversary [this year], time flies,” said Jisoo. “We’ve been building our memories together and we’ve learned a lot from BLINKs [the group’s fandom.] Let’s stay together for a long time.”