When South Korean pop megastars, BTS, announced they would focus on their solo careers, they did so with very careful words. “It’s not that we’re dissolving! We’ve only been living apart for a while, “said Suga, halfway through an hour-long emotional conversation on YouTube on Tuesday. “It’s something we all need.”
No wonder the BTS, also known as Bangtan Sonyeondan or Bulletproof Boy Scouts in Korean, were nervous about revealing their next steps. Since its announcement, it has been reported that the group’s agency shares lost up to $ 1.7 billion (£ 1.4 billion) in market value. And more than that, they have the emotions of their deeply passionate global fan base, BTS Army, to deal with, as well as the weight of a nation’s expectations on their shoulders.
Over the past two years, the idea of BTS has almost grown to seven members. Breaking so many records that Guinness World Records tweeted yesterday: “BTS we will miss you”, the group is the first Grammy-nominated K-pop group, the first to rank a single mainly in Korean at number 1 in the US, and grossed $ 33.3 million with just four concerts in Los Angeles last year. Its success in the West is just the tip of the iceberg: BTS has also won all four major categories at the Mnet Asian Music Awards for three consecutive years.
Beyond its bright trophy room (now open to the public at Seoul’s Hybe Insight Museum), BTS have become South Korea’s bow heads on the world stage. They spoke at the UN assembly in 2021 after traveling with diplomatic passports and earlier this month visited the White House to discuss inclusion and Asian representation with President Biden, as well as the ‘increase in anti-Asian hate crimes. According to a 2018 report, the seven men are worth more than $ 3.4 billion for South Korea’s economy.
But since the BTS debut in 2013, they have been very successful. Despite the humble origins of his label, and in a K-pop industry then dominated by the “Big Three” music agencies, BTS differentiated itself from its peers by fierce performances, a warm but rebellious spirit and a deeply tangible love for music backed by the underground hip-hop credentials of several of its members. They won their first major award in 2015 for the bitterly romantic pop song I Need U, and began a steady rise to dominance in the industry with introspective and philosophical lyrics and an ability to transform their hip-hop beginnings into various global pop genres. On June 10, the group released the anthology album Proof, a three-disc epic that encompasses their single leaders, as well as raw and endearingly youthful early demos.
Drive has defined BTS, and it is clear that this change of circumstances is not a small decision. To see RM, Jin, Suga, J-Hope, Jimin, V, and Jungkook expose everything, with frank and sometimes tearful honesty, on a dinner table in their previously shared flat, is to understand how far they have brought the weight weight of expectation. Even more astonishing is his willingness to open this decision to the inevitable public scrutiny.
I had something to say then, but I just lacked the skills. Now I don’t know what to say Suga
RM, the leader of the group, was forceful in his assessment of an industry that does not easily allow this reflection: “I started music and became BTS because I had a message for the world. But at some point I wasn’t sure what kind of group we were [any more] and for me, it was a big thing I didn’t know. “
Visibly frustrated, he continued: “I always thought BTS was different from other bands, but the problem with K-pop is that they don’t give you time to mature. You just have to be more discriminating with the help you render toward other people. After waking up in the morning and putting on makeup, there is no time to grow up. We’ve lost our direction right now, and I just want to take a moment to think. “
Fans also knew that this change took a long time. Jungkook revealed that his album Map of the Soul: 7, released in 2020, was intended to mark the end of the group’s “first chapter”. That record, with its often brutal assessment of the band’s relationship with music and fame, along with seven solo tracks that dissected each member’s personal journey, should have culminated in a long world tour and, implies, opened the door to this approach to artists. as individuals. “This moment should have come to us sooner, but I guess we put up with it. We have to do it now,” he said emphatically.
A BTS fan takes a selfie before a concert in Las Vegas. Photography: David Becker / Getty Images
However, it is understood that “they endured it.” At the break of this tour canceled, due to the Covid-19, BTS chose to release an independent single to lift the spirits of his fans as well as his. Dynamite, a sugary disco-pop track and their first single entirely in English, earned them their first number 1 in the US and their first Grammy nomination. It’s fair to say that BTS, and its agency, felt the need to capitalize on this sudden rise to the top rungs of pop, though RM points to it now as the time when it began to lose control of the group’s leadership.
To reassure, Suga offers, “But when we look back over the last nine years, almost nothing has gone according to plan. We should live doing what we want to do, we will all die in time!” But the rapper also acknowledged the recent struggles in writing lyrics, and reflected: “At that time [in the group’s earlier years] I had something to say, but I just lacked the skills, now I don’t know what to say. “
Around the dinner table, each of the seven members begins to describe – at first hesitantly, and then confidently – that they are all working on individual albums. J-Hope, a rapper and dancer with an effervescent stage presence, will release his debut in July, before his first solo title set in Lollapalooza, another record-breaking, as he is the first Asian artist to head the long Chicago festival. Jin, the oldest member of the group, and once aspiring actor, rejoices as he describes spending his new free time playing and promises that he is working on new songs, but is likely to be the last to release them. “I hope all goes well,” he teases, while RM intervenes, “You’ll be the grand finale!”
V, a singer with a dark baritone and a fondness for dusty jazz bars, speaks seriously when describing his hopes of having “the opportunity to show my music to the world, not just music: I wanted to show the things that Jungkook, a skilled R&B singer and the youngest of the seven, is just as serious in his promise as: “I’ll do my best and we’ll become a better version of ourselves. I firmly believe that. “
Suga, who is already a high-profile producer, jokes that his rates are prohibitively expensive since his collaboration with K-pop Psy royalty, but is quick to offer help to other members, specifically Jimin. , a ballet dancer and characteristic. emotional vocalist, visibly moved by the procedure. “We can’t tell you everything directly,” he says to the camera, “and that’s very sad and difficult at times. If you took our words as they are … it would be great. ”The other members chanted“ don’t cry! ”While gently rubbing a tear.
RM, the last to speak, sums it up: “The seven of us have gone to a goal together with everything we have. I want BTS to continue for a long time, though [for that to happen] I think I have to keep who I am. What I do know for sure is that we are BTS, and we got here thanks to you. I always want to be a BTS RM. “
While making a toast, BTS Army from around the world is flocking to social media to reassure the group: BTS has come far enough and, as their recent single says, the best is yet to come.