2026 Grammy Nominee - ROSÉ & Bruno Mars - APT.

0:03 Caalaroga Shark Media. I'm Garrett Fischer and on a tired evening. In November twenty twenty three, Rose was wrapping up another long studio session in Los Angeles. She'd been working with a dream team producers Sircut, Omayer Fetti and Rose Shahayed, plus songwriters Amy Allen and Theren Thomas. They'd spent all day trying to craft an R and B track slower and more serious. It wasn't clicking. Everyone was exhausted, the kind of exhausted where you order McDonald's at midnight and just need to decompress. And that's when Rose started teaching them a Korean drinking game. It's called the apartment game Apa tow in Korean, which is how Koreans pronounced the English word apartment. The game is simple. Players chant apa apatow while stacking their hands in a pile. The leader calls out a number representing a floor in an apartment building.

1:08 You count as hands moved from bottom to top. Whoever lands on that floor number has to take a shot. Rose was showing Amy Allen and omer Fetti how to play laughing stacking hands chanting apatow apatow in rhythm songwriter there on Thomas looked up and said, wait, what is that? That's so cool? We should put that in a song, And just like that, after an entire day trying to force something that wasn't working, they stumbled into what would become the biggest song of twenty twenty five. Let's back up, because to understand how Appatoe became historic, the first K pop song nominated for a Record of the Year at the Grammys, the number one song on Billboard's year end Global two hundred chart, you need to understand who Rose is and how unlikely this entire journey was. Roseanne Park, known professionally as Rose, was born in Auckland, New Zealand in nineteen ninety seven and raised in Melbourne, Australia. At fifteen, she auditioned for YG Entertainment, one of Korea's biggest K pop agencies. She moved to South Korea alone as a teenager to train. In twenty sixteen, she debuted as a member of Black Pink, a group that would become one of the most successful K pop acts in history. Black Pink sold out arenas worldwide, broke YouTube records, headline Coachella.

2:28 Rose was the main vocalist, known for her distinctive raspy tone, but being in a manufactured K pop group meant following rules, specific images, controlled releases, everything managed by the company. In March twenty twenty one, Rose released her first solo single album Are, with songs on the Ground and Gone. Both were successful, but they were still YG productions, still within the K pop system. Then in December twenty twenty three, Rose announced she was leaving YG Entertainment for her solo career, though she'd remain with them for Black Pink activities. She signed with the Black Label for management and Atlantic Records for distribution, the same label as Bruno Mars. For the first time, Rose had creative freedom. She could make the music she actually wanted to make. She could co write every song, She could be herself instead of a carefully crafted persona, and in November twenty twenty three, she was in Los Angeles with that team of collaborators, trying to figure out what herself sounded like. Producer Rose Shahayad remembers the moment Appatow was born. They'd been trying this slower R and B vibe for maybe twenty minutes. It wasn't working.

3:43 Chahide suggested they try something more upbeat, more fun. Right then, Rose was showing Amy Allen the drinking game. Cha Hate saw her doing this rhythmic chant, this handstacking game that looked like patty Cake. Darren Thomas immediately recognize it could be a song. Rose explained how the game starts in Korea. Someone Yell's game start. Then the chanting begins, apatow, apatow, apatow. The team looked at each other, that should be the intro. Scoots started building a drumbeat of pop punk energy, cheerleader vibes, high energy and immediate. Rose and the songwriter started singing apatow over the drums, finding the melody. The whole thing came together in about twenty minutes. The rap style intro with Apatow repeated the verse about wanting to kiss for real instead of sending kissy faces on your phone. The pre chorus don't you want me like I want you, baby slash, don't you need me like I need you now, and then that explosive chorus The drinking game chant transformed into a hook apatow, apatow up too, apatoe. It was playful, it was infectious. It was undeniably catchy. It was also about a drinking game, and Rose, who'd spent years as a kpop idol projecting a specific image, was terrified. She went home that night thinking is this too lighthearted? Is

5:16 this too silly? A drinking game for her first major solo single as a free artist, what would people think? Rose asked her team to delete the song from their phones, just get rid of it. It was too weird, too risky. They refused, they were already obsessed with it, but Rose wasn't convinced. The song sat on a shelf for months. She was working on other tracks for what would become her debut album, Rosie, more serious songs, heartbreak songs, songs about toxic relationships, and then someone. To this day, nobody's quite sure who played Appatou for Bruno Mars. Mars texted Circuit Yo, I heard you're involved with apatow. I love it.

6:03 I have some ideas. I'll be in the studio next week. Now. When Bruno Mars says he has ideas, he's not talking about recording a quick guest verse and leaving. Bruno Mars is a producer, a multi instrumentalist, a perfectionist, when he gets involved, he becomes part of the project. Rose had actually pitched Mars three songs when they first connected, number one Girl, three Am, and Apatow. She preferred Apatow, but she wasn't sure he would go for it. When Mars asked what apatow meant, Rose explained the Korean drinking game. Mars was immediately sold. Over the next few sessions, Mars and Rose reworked the song. They tweaked the pre chorus melody.

6:46 Mars added his verse, it's whatever, it's whatever, it's whatever you like, turn this Apatow into a club. I'm talking drink, dance, smoke, freak party all night. They added the bridge, one of the song's strongest moments, where the energy just explodes. Before that final chorus, Mars recorded guitar, bass and drums himself. He produced Rose's vocals, coaching her Yeah, do it again. Rosie and Rose coached Mars on pronunciation, teaching him to say apatow correctly. Session after session of Bruno asking wait, how do I say it? That back and forth, that chemistry, it's all over the final recording. You can hear them having fun. Rose's breathy emotive delivery playing off Mars's charismatic, high energy performance. The call in response dynamic makes the whole thing feel like a party you're invited to. The production team Mars, Sircut, omer Fetti and Roj Shahayed created something that blends genres effortlessly. It's pop rock, pop punk, new wave with indie rock and electro pop influences. There's even a Tony Basil mickey vibe to the Year Leader chant, though Circuit swears that was completely unintentional. They had to credit Basil's writers Mike Chapman and Nikki Chin for the interpolation, but the similarity was accidental. On November eighth, twenty twenty four, Rose posted to Instagram celebrating exactly one year since recording appatow.

8:20 On November seventh, twenty twenty three, that casual late night session after McDonald's had turned into something extraordinary. The song was released October eighteenth, twenty twenty four, as the lead single from Rose's debut album, Rosie. A black and white rose tinted photo served as the artwork. Bruno Mars behind a drum set, Rose lying in front in a black leather jacket and skirt and accompanying music video, co directed by Mars and Daniel Ramos, dropped this same day. It's pure garage band energy, Rose and Mars alternating on drums and voe vocals, both in matching black leather jackets, performing on a pink set. They're playing the drinking game dancing.

9:08 Mars waves Korean flags the Tagooki. At one point, Rose unexpectedly kisses him and he gets visibly flustered. It's joyful, unpretentious fun, and the world went absolutely insane for it. Apateau debuted at number one on both the Billboard Global two hundred and Global Excluding US charts. It became Rose's second number one on these charts after On the Ground in twenty twenty one, and Bruno Mars's second as well, after Die with a Smile with Lady Gaga. The song stayed at number one on the Global two hundred for twelve consecutive weeks. On the Global Excluding US chart, it spent nineteen non consecutive weeks at number one, breaking Mariah Carries All I Want for Christmas Is You as the longest running number one in that chart's history. It peaked at number thie three on the US Billboard Hot One hundred and the UK Singles Chart, making Rose the first K pop female soloist to crack the top five on either chart. It went to number one in over fifty countries Austria, Belgium, Canada, Germany, Indonesia, New Zealand, Norway, the Philippines, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan.

10:24 The list goes on. The song became the first by a K pop female soloist to top Australia's Area Singles chart. It was the first Western song to top the Billboard Japan Hot one hundred in over a decade. On Spotify, Apatow reached one hundred million streams in seven days, the fastest for any K pop female solo artist and the second fastest for any K pop act. It hit one billion streams in exactly one hundred days January twenty sixth, twenty twenty five, becoming the second fastest song in history to reach that milestone. Only Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars's Die with a Smile got there faster. The music video broke records too. It hit two hundred million YouTube views in eleven days and twenty two hours, the fastest for a female K pop solo artist. Then five hundred million views, again the fastest for any K pop artist. Apple Music crowned Apatow the biggest song of twenty twenty five, most streamed globally, most identified on Shazam, most spun on radio, and the track with the most read lyrics of the year.

11:31 But beyond the numbers, Apatow became a cultural phenomenon. TikTok was flooded with videos of people doing the handstacking game. Celebrities posted themselves doing the choreography. Zoe Saldana performed it on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. The chant became a meme, and crucially for Rose, the song promoted Korean culture worldwide. Here was a K pop artist singing partially in Korean, teaching the world about a Korean drinking game, making her culture cool and accessible. For Korean drinking culture specifically, the impact was significant. Around sixty percent of South Korea's population lives in apartment buildings, many over thirty stories tall, so the apartment metaphor resonates deeply. Korean drinking games strengthen social bonds among friends, family, even co workers. Younger generations had been losing touch with these traditions. Apatow brought them roaring back. The game became trendy again. Articles explained the rules.

12:33 People all over the world were stacking hands and chanting Apatow. In September twenty twenty five, Apatow one Song of the Year at the MTV Video Music Awards, making Rose the first K pop act in history to win that category. Then, on November seventh, twenty twenty five, the Grammy nominations dropped. Apatow received three nominations, Best Pop Duo Slash Group Performance, Song of the Year, and Record of This made Apatow the most nominated song by any Korean or K pop artist in Grammy history. More importantly, it made Rose the first K pop artist ever nominated in one of the Big four Grammy categories Record of the Year, Song of the Year, Album of the Year, Best New Artist as a lead artist. BTS had been nominated for Best Pop Duo Slash Group Performance for Dynamite in twenty twenty one and My Universe with Colplay in twenty twenty three, but those weren't Big four categories. Rose had broken through a barrier that K pop had been trying to cross for years.

13:36 When the nominations were announced, Rose was on a group FaceTime call with friends. Someone was streaming the ceremony live. As the Record of the Year nominees were being listed, Rose got increasingly nervous. Are we not gonna get it? Maybe we're not going to get it. Then her name and Mars's appeared on screen. Rose and her friends absolutely lost it, screaming disbelieve, oh my god. Later Rose told the Hollywood Reporter, It's still a dream for me. It's still a fantasy, a moment that proves to myself so many things. Because for Rose this wasn't just about commercial success or breaking records. This was vindication that she'd made the right choice leaving the K pop system, that being authentically herself, teaching a drinking game in the studio, being silly and lighthearted, mixing Korean and English, showing her Australian personality.

14:31 That all of that was not only okay, it was exactly what the world wanted. When Rose was in Black Pink, she'd been molded into a specific image, the main vocalist, the fashion ambassador for Eve, Saint Laurent, glamorous, untouchable, fearce. That was the girl crush persona K pop demanded, but underneath was just Rosie, someone who wanted people to see her as not much different from your average girlfriend or twenty three year old, as she told Paper magazine, someone who plays drinking games with friends, someone relatable. Apatow let her be that person, and it turns out millions of people wanted exactly that. The song also represents something bigger about music. In twenty twenty five, as Omer Fadi, one of the producers, pointed out, the team working on Apato came from different parts of the world. Rose New Zealand Slash South Korea slash Australia, Bruno Mars American with Puerto Rican and Filipino heritage, Amy Allen American, Sircut, Canadian Turan Thomas Trinidadian American, Roje Shahayed Iranian American. They all came together to work on a groove about a Korean drinking game.

15:53 Amy Allen said it perfectly. I feel like we all grew up hearing the saying music is a universal language. But it's a really emotional thing to then find yourself being part of a song that every culture, no matter what language you speak, resonates with. That universality is key to understanding why Appatow worked when it shouldn't have. On paper, it's ridiculous a song about a drinking game, mixing Korean and English, built around a chant that non Korean speakers can barely pronounce. It should have been too niche, too culturally specific. Instead it became the opposite. The specificity made it universal. Everyone has played drinking games. Everyone understands the fun of parties and flirtation. The appatou chant sounds like every other cheer or chant. People use it sports games or parties. Rose herself compared it to the Australian sporting cry Oi Oi Oi. Even if you don't know what apatau means, you want to shout it. Sircuit described the song as a perfect storm, the unique Korean chorus, Bruno Mars's involvement elevating it to another level, the chemistry between Rose and Mars, the fact that it came together so naturally, so quickly, without overthinking. Barren Thomas during that first session told Omer Fetti Omer, this is going to be the new Macarena. Betty thought he was crazy, How is this song going to be the new Macarena? But Thomas was right.

17:27 Appatow became exactly that, a global phenomenon where the joy of participation mattered more than understanding every word, a song that created a shared experience across languages and cultures. For Bruno, Mars Apatow continued his incredible run. He'd already had a massive hit in twenty twenty four with Die with a Smile featuring Lady Gaga. Now Apatow was giving him another era defining song. His involvement was crucial. Circuit noted that Bruno doesn't just do phone in features. When he commits to something, he becomes a producer, a songwriter, a collaborator who makes everything better. And watching Rose and Bruno work together coaching each other's vocals, laughing about pronunciation, the whole room could feel the magic happening. That energy translated directly into the recording. The success of Apatow also paved the way for K pop at the Grammys. More broadly, the soundtrack to the animated film K Pop Demon Hunters featuring the fictional girl group Hunter slash X, received five Grammy nominations, including Song of the Year for Golden International. Girl group CATSI, formed through K pop training Methods by Heib and Geffen Records, got nominated for Best new artist. K pop was finally getting the recognition it deserved at American music's biggest awards show, and Rose had kicked the door wide open as Rosie.

18:55 Her debut album dropped December sixth, twenty twenty four. Reviews praised Rose for showing different dimensions of herself. The album was personal, candid, covering toxic relationships and heartbreak. Apatow was the fun, lighthearted moment that balanced the heavier material. Critics compared Apatow to Gangnum Style Size twenty twelve global phenomenon as the next K pop song to truly transcend cultural barriers and become a worldwide smash, but Apatow did it differently. Gangnam Style was novelty, spectacle, a viral moment. Apatow was a genuinely great pop song that happened to incorporate Korean culture, not a Korean song trying to be a pop hit.

19:41 That distinction matters. Rose didn't dilute her culture to make the song more palatable to Western audiences. She doubled down on it. The Korean lyrics, the Korean drinking game, teaching the world to say Apatow, and the world embraced it. On Grammy Night FA February second, twenty twenty six. Rose will attend as the first K pop artist nominated for Record of the Year as a lead artist. Whether she wins or not, she's already made history. But the real victory is simpler than that. Rose made a song about a drinking game, a song she was terrified to release, a song she begged her team to delete, A song that came together in twenty minutes after a long day and a McDonald's run, and it became the biggest song in the world. It proved that authenticity resonates, that cultural specificity can be universal, that sometimes the best creative choices are the scary ones that you don't have to smooth off your rough edges or hide your background to connect with people globally. The last line of the chorus is perfect.

20:47 All you gotta do is just meet me at the appatoe and an invitation, simple direct Come as you are, let's play, let's have fun, Let's connect. That's what apatow is. That's what Rose offered the world, and the world showed up twelve weeks at number one, one billion streams, three Grammy nominations, History made all because on one tired. November night, Rose taught her friends a drinking game, and someone said, we should make that a song. Perfect storms don't announce themselves, They just happen, and when they do, all you can do is ride them. Rose wrote, apatow all the Way to the Grammys. Not bad for a song about stacking hands and counting to random floor numbers. That's our Grammy Countdown bonus episode, a Korean drinking game, an unexpected collaboration, and proof that sometimes the songs you're most afraid to release are exactly the ones the world needs to hear.

21:47 I'm Garrett Fisher. Stack your hands, count your blessings, and never delete a song just because it makes you nervous.