BLACKPINK’s Rosé Faces Plagiarism Accusations But Netizens Disagree

BLACKPINK’s Rosé’s latest single with Bruno Mars, “APT,” has become a globally hit song a few days after its release, taking over social media trends like a storm. But the song was recently hit with plagiarism concerns.

Recently, a Korean media outlet put out an article pointing out that the pre-chorus section of “APT” had the same melody as that of the Japanese song “Gomen Ne, īko Ja Irarenai” by Mikun Sawai. In particular, the article mentioned that the tune at the 33-second mark of the former matched the tune at the 40-second mark of the latter.

“Gomen Ne, īko Ja Irarenai” was released in 2013 and gained huge popularity in Japan. According to the media article, some listeners noticed the similarity between the two songs right away. But it also mentioned counterpoints presented by other listeners, who argued that it was a widely-used progression that can be heard in other popular songs.

Some also pointed out that Rosé and Bruno Mars were mindful of plagiarism issues and hence credited Toni Basil’s “Mickey” for sampling the song. The issue with the chorus melody, as pointed out by netizens, lies in the fact that it has been used for so long it is hard to trace down who was the original composer.

Korean netizens strongly defended Rosé on this issue, some even suspecting it to be media play to undermine her song’s success.

• “Here we go again. They made a whole fuss for PSY, saying he copied some advertisement. China and Japan consider anything popular as theirs.”
• “Since ‘APT’ is doing so well, they had to pull some tricks. How predictable.”
• “There’s also a (similar) song by The Ting Tings apart from that one.”
• “Is it you again, HYBE?”
• “So pathetic to be doing this with a chord progression that’s used so often.”