Global pop sensation Blackpink have been chosen as Time magazine's 2022 Entertainer of the Year, making the four-woman band the second K-pop artists to earn the title, after BTS in 2020.
Selected by YG Entertainment, a big South Korean record label that screens performers for star quality and trains them intensively, the quartet - Jennie, Jisoo, Lisa and Rosé - found international stardom quickly after their 2016 debut.
Their first LP, The Album, sold more than one million copies in less than a month after its 2020 release.
In a Time feature marking the Entertainer of the Year award, the group revisited their journey, from playing at Coachella in 2019 to performing 'Pink Venom' at the VMAs earlier this year.
"We put in a lot of work so we could look like superwomen," rapper Jennie told Time. "We're very normal girls, at the end of the day."
Talking about their success - and the pressures that come with it - Jennie said the band perform from the heart.
"If we consider this in the business way, we wouldn't be able to do this," she said.
Part of the group's global success comes from their cosmopolitan backgrounds. Singer Rosé, who was born in New Zealand and raised in Australia, called it "a plus" in the studio that they're all from "different cultures."
Jennie was born in South Korea but grew up in New Zealand, while dancer Lisa is from Thailand. Singer Jisoo is the only one of the group born and raised in South Korea.
Blackpink currently are performing across Europe until the end of the year as part of their Born Pink world tour, which kicked off in October.
