“Pink Venom” by Blackpink

Jennie, one of the members of Blackpink, described the interesting title of this piece (“Pink Venom”) as being intended to point to a contrast, i.e. the crew being both pretty (i.e. “pink”) yet dangerous (“venom”) at the same time. And such an idea is effectively relayed in verses of this song. In other words, the vocalists go about presenting themselves as possessing an exquisite and even costly fashion sense. But there are also references to “Rambo” for instance and even, in a roundabout way, the late Biggie Smalls, i.e. the gangsta rap legend.

But it doesn’t read like the ladies are trying to say that they are violent. Instead, this track was clearly influenced by what can be termed as an American hip-hop ethic. Or put more simply, it is braggadocious in nature, with the basis of the vocalists’ high confidence being their wealth and toughness.

Outside of that, the chorus reads a lot like the Blackpink girls are acknowledging the efficacy of their music. So when the girls tell you to “taste that pink venom” that goes “straight to your dome”, that sounds a lot like them artistically putting forth that they know their music is poppin’.

Facts about “Pink Venom”

Interestingly Blackpink, as famous as they have become, has only dropped one studio album to date, which is 2020’s “The Album”. So “Pink Venom”, which YG Entertainment released on 19 August 2022, marks the lead single from their second studio LP, a project which itself is titled “Born Pink”. And the teasing of this track is known to date back to about a month prior, i.e. early July, 2022.

This track was produced by Teddy Park, a Korean-American musician, who also co-wrote it with Ido, Danny Chung, R.Tee and 24.

A certain line in this song was in part derived from the Notorious B.I.G. classic “Kick in the Door” (1997). But the songs that were officially interpolated into “Pink Venom” are Rihanna’s “Pon de Replay” (2005) and Snoop Dogg’s “I Wanna Rock” (2009).

For the record, the other members of Blackpink besides the aforementioned Jennie are Rosé, Lisa and Jisoo. And as of this dropping, the ladies range in age from 25 to 27.