Boombayah


"Boombayah" is the debut single of South Korean girl group Blackpink. It was released coupled with "Whistle" as a digital single album titled Square One, on August 8, 2016 by YG Entertainment. "Boombayah" topped the Billboard World Digital Songs chart in the first week of sales. On February 24, 2020, "Boombayah" became the first Kpop debut music video to surpass 800 million views on YouTube.

Background and release

"Boombayah" was released on August 8, 2016 at 8 p.m. KST as a digital single titled Square One, coupled with "Whistle", through various digital music portals in South Korea.

Music video

The music video for "Boombayah" was directed by Seo Hyun-seung, and it was released on Blackpink's official YouTube channel on August 8, 2016.
On January 31, 2017, the music video for "Boombayah" hit 100 million views on YouTube, which makes Blackpink the fifth K-pop girl group to reach 100 million views, as well as the fastest debut music video of any K-pop act to reach this milestone. As of July 2020, the video has surpassed 890 million views.

Promotion

Blackpink promoted "Boombayah" at their debut stage on SBS' Inkigayo on August 14, 2016. They subsequently promoted the song for the two following weeks on Inkigayo, and also performed "Boombayah" at the 26th Seoul Music Awards on January 19, 2017..

Critical reception

's Jeff Benjamin said that they "embrace the hip-hop sensibilities and club-ready sounds with which their seniors gained an international following", referring to their labelmates Psy, Big Bang and 2NE1. He said "Boombayah" has "booming, exotic beats".

Commercial performance

"Boombayah" entered at number 7 with 88,215 downloads sold and 1,866,737 streams in South Korea.
In the United States, "Boombayah" topped Billboards World Digital Songs for the week August 27, 2016. In its second week on the chart, "Whistle" placed at number 3 for the week September 3, 2016.

Charts

Chart Peak
position