APT: the Korean word, the drinking game, and the song

APT stands for apateu (아파트), the Korean word for apartment, and it is also the name of a drinking game: players chant the word, stack their hands and count. Rosé and Bruno Mars built their 2024 single APT. around that chant, and IFPI named it the best-selling single in the world for 2025.

APT meaning in Korean: what does apateu mean?

아파트 is the everyday Korean word for an apartment or a block of flats, taken from the English word. The Takeout, explaining the game in February 2025, called it Konglish, the name for English loanwords reshaped in Korean use. On its own it is not slang and has nothing to do with drinking; the game simply borrows it as a chant.

How to play the APT drinking game

It needs at least two players and no equipment.

• Chant. Everyone says apateu four times, moving their hands up and down in time.
• Call a number. The player whose turn it is shouts out a number.
• Stack. All players pile their hands in the middle, one on top of another.
• Count. Starting from the bottom, each hand is pulled out and placed on top of the pile as the count goes up.
• Drink. Whoever’s hand lands on the number that was called drinks.

Nothing in the rules needs alcohol; the count only singles out one player. Where there is a drink, it is often soju, or soju poured into beer as somaek.

APT. by Rosé and Bruno Mars

APT., with the full stop, came out on 18 October 2024 through The Black Label and Atlantic Records as the lead single from Rosé’s first solo studio album, Rosie. Rosé is a member of Blackpink. The chorus is built on the game’s chant. The Takeout reported that Rosé liked the game so much she taught it to her studio crew, Bruno Mars among them, and the song grew out of that.

The credits list Rosé, Amy Allen, Brody Brown, Philip Lawrence, Theron Thomas, Rogét Chahayed, Omer Fedi, Cirkut and Bruno Mars as writers; the last four produced it. Nicky Chinn and Mike Chapman share a writing credit because the song interpolates Toni Basil’s 1982 hit Mickey.

How APT. did on the charts

According to IFPI, APT. is the first year-end No. 1 on its global single chart with non-English lyrics, and the first led by artists from outside North America and Europe. HUNTR/X’s Golden, from KPop Demon Hunters, was second with 2.00 billion units. On the Global 200, Bruno Mars’s duet with Lady Gaga, Die With a Smile, spent longer at No. 1, 18 weeks, so APT. was not the longest-running No. 1 of the period.

Questions people ask

What is the APT drinking game? A Korean counting game played over drinks: a chant, a called number, a stack of hands, and whoever lands on the number drinks.

Is the APT game older than the song? Yes. It was already a popular Korean drinking game, and the single, released in October 2024, was built on it.

What song does APT. sample? It interpolates Mickey, Toni Basil’s 1982 single, which is why Mickey’s writers appear in the credits.