Pentagon: ‘We Want To Give People Hope And Strength'

The South Korean group discuss their strong work ethic, Bollywood films, garlic naan and future plans to visit India

- Riddhi Chakraborty

I meet Pentagon on a chilly day in Seoul in April. It’s barely 1 p.m in the afternoon and the South Korean group have already had a taxing day–promotions for a new album will do that to you. They make the time to meet me because they’re especially keen to reach out to their Indian fans.

They’ve just performed at a weekly broadcast show and I’m ushered through a maze of corridors in the building to their green room. (We pass several other famous idols on the way, all in various states of relaxation, and it’s terribly hard not to gawk.) I’m shown into a rather large dressing room and there stand eight of the nine members of Pentagon, barefaced and exhausted but cheerful, greeting me with big smiles and polite bows. Leader Hui steps forward to apologize for rapper Kino’s absence (an injury has him out of commission) and there’s a beat of awkward silence before we all burst out laughing and sit down for our chat.

We’re meeting during one of the brief intervals in their day during which they can switch off from being Pentagon and just be a group of twenty-somethings, and it’s a space not many fans get to see. They’re quieter than what you would expect, but it doesn’t take away from their friendliness and positive energy.

Pentagon debuted in 2016 after being formed via a reality show called Pentagon Maker by the South Korean television network Mnet. They originally comprised 10 members and continued as nine after rapper E’Dawn’s departure in 2018. They’ve released a whopping nine EPs (12 if you count their Japanese releases) but it was their 2018 mega-hit single “Shine” which gained them global popularity thanks to its upbeat, catchy chorus and genius use of the viral dance move ‘The Shoot.’ They’d just dropped their multi-genre EP