Hyunwoo Cho

Hyunwoo Cho

With over 10 years of experience in the Hallyu industry, Hyunwoo has dedicated his career to connecting Korean culture with the world. As the founder of Daebak, he works closely with Korean brands and stays ahead of the latest trends to deliver an authentic taste of Korea to fans globally.

BLACKPINK and Selena Gomez posing with ice cream and the Selpink ice cream truck in the Ice Cream music video

20 Times You See Food in a YG Music Video: BLACKPINK, BIGBANG and More

Hyunwoo Cho

Table of Contents

YG Entertainment has built a roster of global superstars, from BIGBANG and 2NE1 to BLACKPINK, AKMU, Winner, iKON, Treasure and Babymonster. While the label is famous for its swagger, fashion and choreography, its music videos are also packed with one underrated ingredient: food. Whether it is a literal ice cream truck or a flying rice cake, snacks keep showing up in the most stylish corners of YG's catalogue. Here are 20 times you see food in a YG music video, served straight to your screen.

BLACKPINK and Selena Gomez surrounded by ice cream cones and the pastel Selpink truck in the Ice Cream music video
BLACKPINK and Selena Gomez in the candy-coloured Ice Cream music video. | Source: Koreaboo

1. BLACKPINK and Selena Gomez, Ice Cream: the whole dessert truck

BLACKPINK's 2020 collab with Selena Gomez is basically a dessert advert. The video opens with Selena pulling up in a pastel pink ice cream truck stamped with the word "Selpink," a mash up of Selena and BLACKPINK, before the girls cone, scoop and stack their way through more sweets than you can count. From Lisa balancing a tiny doll on top of her cone to Rosé dunking sprinkles, every frame is filled with cream, candy and pastel sugar dreams.

2. BLACKPINK, Lovesick Girls: the all-American diner

In Lovesick Girls, BLACKPINK steps inside a saturated red diner where Jisoo slides a milkshake across the counter and the booth tables are loaded with burgers and fries. The food fight scene is part of a sequence about emotional chaos, but visually the diner becomes one of the most quoted images of the era, with neon signs, glass straws and stacked pancakes filling the back of every shot.

BLACKPINK Jennie in a red diner scene from the Lovesick Girls music video set
A scene from BLACKPINK's Lovesick Girls music video, including the diner set. | Source: The Korea Times

3. BLACKPINK, How You Like That: candy and cake props

Sandwiched between Trojan horses and burning umbrellas, How You Like That hides quieter food beats. The set design plays with sugary palettes, including pink macarons, candy bowls and decorative cakes, that match the girls' high fashion looks. It is the kind of curated still life that turns BLACKPINK's videos into mood boards for Pinterest, with confectionery used like jewellery.

4. BLACKPINK, Kill This Love: champagne and toast props

Kill This Love is best remembered for its drumline horn riff, but the styling is loaded with party food cues, including flutes of champagne, a giant heart shaped piñata and toast clinking gestures during the bridge. The video uses these images of celebration to flip the script on a breakup, treating heartbreak as a banquet that the girls have learned to enjoy alone.

5. BIGBANG, Bae Bae: flying chapssaltteok

BIGBANG's Bae Bae from the MADE series literally throws food at you. The hook chants "chapssaltteok, chapssaltteok," the Korean name for sticky glutinous rice cakes, and the music video answers with shots of two rice cakes smashing into each other in midair. YG even released a series of "sticky rice cake" teaser clips on its official channels around the release to lean into the gag.

Two traditional Korean chapssaltteok glutinous rice cakes tossed in the air in BIGBANG's Bae Bae music video
The chapssaltteok scene from BIGBANG's Bae Bae music video. | Source: Koreaboo

6. BIGBANG, Bang Bang Bang: bottles, glasses and party platters

Bang Bang Bang is BIGBANG's loudest party single, and the music video treats the table like a stage prop. Bottles fly through the air, glasses crash and Daesung even spreads a banquet of bottles and snacks around himself in one shot. It is not fine dining, but it sells the chaos of a club night with food, glassware and confetti dialed up to eleven.

7. BIGBANG, Fantastic Baby: oranges, fruit and feast tables

In Fantastic Baby, BIGBANG plays prophets and kings inside a dystopian palace. The set is dressed with platters of fruit, including oranges, grapes and pomegranates, that nod to baroque banquet paintings. While the food sits silently in the background, it gives the chaos a hint of opulence, like the boys are partying at the end of an empire.

8. BIGBANG, Sober: street food and dive bar snacks

For Sober, BIGBANG takes their party out of the palace and into the streets. The members race through Seoul nightlife scenes with shots of pojangmacha tents, late night snacks and shared bottles of soju. The food cues here are not about glamour, they sell the post hangover honesty of the title, where comfort food and cheap drinks are the real cure.

9. G-Dragon, Crooked: kicking food off the tables

G-Dragon's London shot Crooked is where YG's food chaos peaks. He and his crew invade an outdoor eating area, jumping on tables and kicking plates of food onto the ground, while one of his friends keeps munching unbothered in the corner. The moment is petty, punk and very on brand, turning a meal into a moshpit.

G-Dragon styled in punk fashion in a scene from his Crooked music video filmed in London
G-Dragon in his London shot Crooked music video, where food and tables get destroyed. | Source: The Korea Herald

10. G-Dragon, MichiGO: convenience store snacks

MichiGO finds G-Dragon racing around Seoul with a backpack full of high energy mischief. The video flashes through Korean convenience store aisles, including soju bottles, ramyeon cups and snack racks, as he zigzags from corner stores to rooftops. It is essentially a love letter to GS25 and CU shopping sprees, turning everyday eating into a music video set piece.

11. G-Dragon, Crayon: cereal bowls and candy

Crayon is colour, chaos and breakfast. G-Dragon raids a cereal aisle in a meta shopping skit, holds up a Cap'n style cereal box and even tips a cartoonish bowl of milk and cereal in one shot. The combination of sugary breakfast cereal and oversized candy props turns Crayon into one of YG's most snack heavy videos.

12. TAEYANG, Wedding Dress: champagne and the ceremony table

TAEYANG's Wedding Dress is a heartbreak ballad, but the visual centre is a luxurious banquet hall. Tables glow with champagne flutes, plated desserts and a multi tier wedding cake while the wedding goes ahead without him. The food is the cruelest detail of all, every dessert reminding TAEYANG that he is watching someone else's reception.

13. 2NE1, I Don't Care: cocktails and revenge brunch

Directed by Cha Eun-taek, 2NE1's I Don't Care opens with the girls discovering their cheating boyfriends and then enjoying a glow up. Cocktails, brunch plates and champagne glasses become props as Sandara, CL, Bom and Minzy upgrade their lives. The food and drinks are styled like trophies of independence, framing the song's clap back energy.

14. 2NE1, Falling in Love: tropical fruits and ice pops

Falling in Love drops 2NE1 into a beach side summer reel. Watermelon slices, pineapples and bright ice pops fill the frames as the girls dance through a boardwalk world of sun, sand and shaved ice. The fruit functions like a colour palette, anchoring the music video's reggae lite groove in a holiday food fantasy.

15. AKMU, Dinosaur: jungle snacks and lunch boxes

AKMU's Dinosaur, from their Summer Episode album, takes Chanhyuk and Suhyun on a Jurassic Park style adventure. Between the dino chases, the siblings packs picnic supplies, dosirak style lunch boxes and snack pouches that fuel the survival mission. The food is small, but it shows AKMU's softer, family friendly storytelling inside YG's wider catalogue.

AKMU's Chanhyuk and Suhyun running through a whimsical jungle in the Dinosaur music video
AKMU's Chanhyuk and Suhyun on their dinosaur adventure in the Dinosaur MV. | Source: Soompi

16. AKMU, How Can I Love the Heartbreak: tea and quiet cafes

How Can I Love the Heartbreak, You're the One I Love trades chaos for calm. Suhyun and Chanhyuk are filmed in soft lit interiors that feel like a cosy Seoul cafe, with steaming cups of tea, simple cakes and pastel pastries on the table. The food details are gentle, designed to underline the song's slow burn heartbreak.

17. iKON, Killing Me: dining table drama

iKON's Killing Me from New Kids: Continue stages much of its emotional acting around a dining table, complete with plates, glasses and an upended meal. The dinner setting becomes a war zone for relationship arguments, with food as the silent witness to every shouted line and broken promise the song describes.

18. WINNER, Really Really: beach drinks and roadside snacks

WINNER's Really Really is one big summer road trip, and food shows up everywhere it should. The members drive through California style scenery, lounge with iced drinks, pull over for diner style snacks and chill on beach blankets surrounded by chips and soft drinks. Each food cue helps land the song's carefree romance.

19. TREASURE, Going Crazy: party platters and chaos

TREASURE's Going Crazy from THE FIRST STEP: TREASURE EFFECT is a high energy debut era anthem, and the MV throws in plenty of party props. The set is full of soda cans, takeout snacks and casual junk food that match the playful chaos of the choreography, turning the youngest YG boy group's world into a teenage hangout movie.

20. BABYMONSTER, BATTER UP: street food and lunch trays

BABYMONSTER's BATTER UP brings YG into a new generation while still leaning on food cues. The video includes lunch tray style shots, cafeteria flavours and snack moments that show the new rookies as teenagers with attitude. It is a fitting close to this list, proof that YG is still serving food in its music videos, one generation after the next.

Why food keeps showing up in YG videos

Across two decades of releases, YG Entertainment's music videos have leaned on food as set dressing, choreography, metaphor and meme. Whether it is BIGBANG's chapssaltteok joke, BLACKPINK's ice cream empire, G-Dragon's table flipping or AKMU's quiet tea cups, food is one of the easiest ways for YG to ground its bold visuals in something everyone recognises. Next time you rewatch a YG release, keep one eye on the table, you will be surprised how often a snack steals the scene.

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