Universal Music, Interscope Records Now Serves YG Entertainment’s Blackpink
Billboard-busting K Pop Group Blackpink Leap To Fame, Signs Interscope, Universal Music Global Deal (excl. Asia)
Billboard-busting K Pop Group Blackpink Leap To Fame, Signs Interscope, Universal Music Global Deal (excl. Asia)
Blackpink's Ddu-Du Ddu-Du has garnered over 450 million views. Photo courtesy of YG Entertainment.
We are just beginning to see the tip of the iceberg: Blackpink’s latest music video Ddu-Du-Dhu-Dhu released just 4 months ago on YouTube has garnered overe 450 million views. The video has not only attracted scores of fans worldwide, but also strategic interest directly affecting YG Entertainment, a Korean artist management company famed for other chart-topping artists including PSY and Big Bang.
In a recent release, Universal Music Group (UMG) and Interscope Records have announced a global deal to represent Blackpink’s music, a Korean act managed by YG Entertainment.
Between a music promoter and artist management company, a ‘promotional’ deal may just be another regular alliance to expand a larger, region- and international demand in return for revenue befitting both parties. However, this is not just any deal.
According to the press release, the strategic interest from Universal Music, the parent company of Interscope Records, as it seems, has strike a deal to represent Blackpink’s music everywhere else EXCEPT Asia. YG isn’t giving the whole pie away of course, an authority only YG has the upper hand to. Not limiting the facts, Interscope and UMG are part of a new card game: this time involves serving Asia’s latest identity of fame.
“We will work closely with the biggest music company, Universal Music Group, globally for the successful global debut and promotion of Blackpink. In addition, we will do our best to help other YG artists to break through the North American and European territories as well,” said Yang Hyun Suk, Founder & Chairman of YG Entertainment.
While K Pop’s sensation in Korea has only reach more attention away from Asia in recent years, the godfathers of the music industry from the West (mostly U.S & Europe) have come to accept, embrace the magnitude influence of K Pop and what it can offer.
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“Chairman Yang has built YG Entertainment into a global music powerhouse with an impressive track record of breaking artists. I’m thrilled to expand our relationship with YG through the addition of Blackpink to the Interscope family,” said Chairman and CEO of Universal Music Group – Sir Lucian Grainge.
“We look forward to building upon BLACKPINK’s remarkable early success by putting the global resources and expertise of UMG behind them and growing their audience around the world.”
The confluence between the music industry in the West and East (Asia) have finally played catch up. The significant global partnership between YG and Interscope Records may not even be more important than the fact that a worldwide sensation Asia-based act and artist management company have entered a more leveled playing field with a global record label that signs with some of the top celebrity stars we know today.
This is not a deal with just another American company, but a partnership with a worldwide-based U.S company with significant authority in many music markets worldwide. K Pop culture, especially its music today, is a significant DNA of the rising popularity of Asian culture and its developing interest. UMG and Interscope’s initial access to distribute and promote a Korean act is a new trend in part with the world’s redirected focus to Asia, an exciting time in the history of Asia’s music business.
Kris Wu remain the other Asian artists signed under Interscope Records. Artists signed to Interscope and UMG include Lady Gaga, Avicii, Dr Dre, Imagine Dragons, Madonna, Sting.
Blackpink remain the only all-female K Pop group to have charted #1 on Billboard World Album and #40 on Billboard 200 due to the release of the song ‘Square Up’. In August, “Ddu-Du Ddu-Du” appeared at #3 on YouTube’s Global Top 10 Songs of the Summer list, surpassing Drake’s “In My Feelings” and Ed Sheeran’s “Perfect.”
