DESN245_Project02_Editorial

THE
TRIUMPH
OF BTS

THE TRI

2 ROLLING STONE

Photo by Hong Jang Hyun for Variety UMPH OF BTS

How seven young superstars rewrote music-biz
rules and became the biggest band in the world.

BY BRIAN HIATT

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his is a very serious and deep ... I began to like even the things about
the other members I used to hate. The
“ question,” says RM, the 26-year- time we spent together really made us
close, like a family. No matter where I
T old leader of the world’s big- go, there is someplace that I can come
gest band. He pauses to think. back to. I’ve come to feel that way
We’re talking about utopian and dystopian about our group.
futures, about how the boundary-smashing,
hegemony-overturning global success of his before a love of hip-hop, first sparked by a ees on board with them, all ultimately jetti-
group, the wildly talented seven-member Korean group, Epik High, detoured him into soned in favor of the singers as BTS became
South Korean juggernaut BTS, feels like a superstardom. Bang Si-hyuk, the cerebral, more of a pop hybrid.) Suga, also a fan of
glimpse of a new and better world, of an in- intense-yet-avuncular mogul-producer who Epik High, as well as American rappers like
terconnected 21st century actually living up founded BTS’ record company, Big Hit En- T.I., was already a skilled rapper when he
to its promise. tertainment (now HYBE), signed RM first, joined, much to his parents’ displeasure.
BTS’ downright magical levels of cha- in 2010, and gradually formed BTS around “They didn’t understand rap music,” says
risma, their genre-defying, sleek-but-per- the rapper’s talent and magnetism. “When Suga. “It’s natural that they were against
sonal music, even their casually nontoxic, I first met RM,” says Bang, “I felt a sense of what I was doing. I think that helped me
skin-care-intensive brand of masculinity duty that I must help him grow to become a work harder because there was something
— every bit of it feels like a visitation from great artist after acknowledging his musical that I had to prove.” On the intense 2016
some brighter, more hopeful timeline. What talents and ways of thinking.” solo track “The Last” (recorded under the
RM is currently pondering, however, is how When BTS debuted in 2013, Big Hit was alias Agust D), Suga revealed battles with
all of it contrasts with a darker landscape an underdog startup in a South Korean mu- OCD, social anxiety, and depression. “I’m
all around them, particularly the horrifying sic business then dominated by three huge comfortable now and feeling good,” he
recent wave of anti-Asian violence and dis- firms (Bang had been a producer for one says. “But those sort of negative emotions
crimination across a global diaspora. of them, JYP). Now, thanks to BTS’ success, come and go. For anybody, these emotions
“We are outliers,” says RM, “and we HYBE is a publicly traded corporation so are not things that need to be hidden. They
came into the American music market and large it just snapped up the American man- need to be discussed and expressed. What-
enjoyed this incredible success.” In 2020, agement company behind Justin Bieber ever emotions I may be feeling, I’m always
seven years into their career, BTS’ first En- and Ariana Grande. “We always set goals ready to express them.”
glish-language single, the irresistible “Dyna- and standards that may seem ideal, and try With the group’s sunniest personality,
mite,” hit Number One, an achievement so our best to get there as close as possible,” J-Hope is beloved by his fellow members.
singular it prompted a congratulatory state- Bang says. “It’s still the same.” (“I think J-Hope can run for president of
ment from South Korea’s president, Moon A lengthy recruitment and audition the world,” says V; “There will be at least six
Jae-in. The nation has long been deeply in- process brought RM his six bandmates: fel- votes from us,” RM adds.) J-Hope is a stun-
vested in its outsize cultural success beyond low rappers Suga and J-Hope, and singers ning dancer, and a surprisingly aggressive
its borders, known as the Korean Wave. Jung Kook, V, Jimin, and Jin. Jung Kook, the rapper, a skill he learned in his trainee days.
“Now, of course, there is no utopia,” RM youngest member, whose multiple talents “When I first started training, all the mem-
continues. “There’s a light side; there’s al- include an extraordinarily soulful tenor, had bers were rappers,” he says. “So when you
ways going to be a dark side. The way we offers to sign with multiple entertainment went into the house, beats were dropping.
think is that everything that we do, and our agencies, but chose Big Hit and BTS be- Everyone was just rapping in freestyle. It
existence itself, is contributing to the hope cause of RM. “I just simply thought RM was was kind of not easy to adapt at first.”
for leaving this xenophobia, these nega- really cool,” Jung Kook says. “I really didn’t Jin, whose background was in acting,
tive things, behind. It’s our hope, too, that know a lot about being a singer. But when was recruited on the street by a Big Hit
people in the minority will draw some en- I saw him rap, I just thought he was really, scout on the basis of sheer handsomeness.
ergy and strength from our existence. Yes, really awesome. And I believe maybe it was He’s developed formidable musical skills,
there’s xenophobia, but there are also a lot fate that drew me to him.” but enjoys joking about the attention to his
of people who are very accepting. . . . The Suga and J-Hope were the first two looks. “I want to emphasize, for the record,
fact that we have faced success in the Unit- members to join after RM, at a point when that everybody went berserk about how
ed States is very meaningful in and of itself.” Bang imagined a pure hip-hop group. good-looking I was,” he says of a recent
At the moment, RM is in an acoustical- (There were a bunch of other rapper train- appearance on a South Korean TV variety
ly treated room at his label’s headquarters
in Seoul, wearing a white medical mask to
protect a nearby translator, a black bucket
hat, and a black hoodie from the Los An-
geles luxury label Fear of God. As RM has
had to explain too many times on U.S. talk
shows, he taught himself his fluent English
via bingeing Friends DVDs. Still, he makes
understandable use of the interpreter when
the conversation gets complex.
RM is a fan of complexity. He was on
a path toward an elite university education

4 ROLLING STONE

show. At the same time, he can be touch- Jimin, who feels he owes BTS’ fans flawless ryline. Even their between-song banter is
ingly insecure. “I lack in many areas,” he performances. “For their sake and for their full of uncommon depth. “We all have gal-
says. “Other members will learn a dance devotion, I shouldn’t make mistakes.” axies in our hearts,” RM once told an arena
once and they’ll be able to dance right away He’s also deeply attached to his team. full of fans. “Even my dad, who works ev-
to the music, but I can’t. So I try to work “We were very different people that came ery day. And my mom, who’s a realtor. And
harder so I don’t hold the other members together,” Jimin says. “We argued a lot in my little sister, too. Even the stray dogs and
back or be a burden.” the beginning, of course, but I think now, stray cats on the street. Even the rocks on
V, a fan of jazz, classical music, and El- because we have spent so much time to- the ground. . . . But there are people who will
vis Presley, with a distinct baritone, ended gether, I began to like even the things about never know this until they die.” (Later, he’d
up a Big Hit trainee by accident, after show- the other members I used to hate. The time co-write the 2019 BTS track “Mikrokosmos,”
ing up to support an auditioning friend. He we spent together really made us close, which draws on a similar theme.)
was a “hidden member,” who didn’t appear like a family. No matter where I go, there It’s not uncommon for the members
on camera in the endless vlogs and other is someplace that I can come back to. I’ve of BTS to shed a tear or two while they’re
ingenious online promotion that preceded come to feel that way about our group.” addressing fans onstage. Along with their
BTS’ debut in June 2013. “I actually can’t RM carries himself with a level of gravi- comfort with makeup and iridescent hair
understand it whatsoever,” he says now, tas that was perhaps incongruent with his dye, it all plays into their instinctive rejec-
with a laugh. “Why did they do that? Why initial stage name of Rap Monster, officially tion of rigid conceptions of masculinity.
was that the concept? I really had no idea!” shortened in 2017. He drops quotes from Ni- “The labels of what being masculine is, is an
(Bang belatedly offers an answer: “We etzsche and the abstract artist Kim Whan- outdated concept,” says RM. “It is not our in-
needed momentum to announce that the ki in interviews, and celebrated his 26th tention to break it down. But if we are mak-
team called BTS was finally complete. V birthday by donating nearly $85,000 to a ing a positive impact, we are very thankful.
had great charms in terms of appearance museum foundation to support the reprint- We live in an age where we shouldn’t have
and personality, so I thought it would be ing of rare fine-art books. He and Suga fill those labels or have those restrictions.”
impactful when he was revealed last. It was their rhymes with double- and triple-enten- In their early days, with their singles
an effective strategy in forming the team’s dres that would impress U.S. hip-hop heads “No More Dream” and “N.O.,” BTS wrote di-
overall image, as well as leaving an impres- who’ve never thought much about BTS. rectly about the frustrations of South Kore-
sion of each member.”) The group as a whole shares a penchant an youth, who faced relentless pressure and
Jimin is a virtuosic, formally trained for weighty themes, basing an album cycle competition in school and the job market.
dancer who also hits some of the most im- on Jungian psychology, brilliantly using Plu- (BTS were carrying on a tradition: K-pop
possibly high notes in BTS’ catalog. He has to’s loss of full-planet status as a romantic
a strong perfectionist streak. “Dancing was metaphor on the song “134340,” lacing mu- Jin, J-Hope, Jungkook, Suga, Jimin, RM, and V say
my own world and my own space,” says sic videos with a labyrinthine ongoing sto- goodbye on stage at Bang Bang Con: The Live. (2020)

Image Source: BTS official Facebook page

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with layers of Jam and Lewis-style synths Image Source: BTS official Facebook page

and boasts of being “smooth like butter”

and having a “superstar glow.” “It’s very

energetic,” says RM. “And very summery. It

has a very dynamic performance.” There’s

clearly more music coming as well — sever-

al Western songwriters who’ve worked with

the group in the past say they’re currently in

touch with BTS’ team about new songs.

B y taking a strong hand in the writ-
ing of their music, BTS have al-
ways stood apart from tradition-
al K-pop methods, and, for that

matter, much of songwriting-camp-domi-

nated U.S. pop, too. (Whether BTS are ac-

tually part of K-pop at this point is a hotly

debated topic among their fans, known as

ARMY — many believe the group has tran-

scended the label.) “They feel organic and

unique,” says Late Late Show host James

Corden, a fan who’s had them on several

times since 2017. “It never feels like they’re

in the machine. They are the machine.”

RM and Suga have both been produc-

ing for years, and Suga has numerous song-

writing credits for other artists. Outside of

the members’ contributions, most of the

production and songwriting was long ac-

complished in-house at Big Hit, with Bang

and a team of producers and songwriters

collaborating. Starting circa 2017, Western

BTS World Tour: Love Yourself, commonly known as the United States, and the West.” songwriters and producers joined the pro-
the Love Yourself World Tour, was the third worldwide
concert tour headlined by South Korean band BTS to BTS’ full name, Bangtan Sonyeondan, cess, but their contributions were part of a
promote their Love Yourself series. (2018-2019)
translates to “Bulletproof Boy Scouts,” and group effort.
progenitors Seo Taiji and Boys hit similar
thematic notes in the early 1990s, while the idea, roughly, was that they would be Head producer Pdogg tends to select
drawing on then-current American hip-hop
and R&B, just as BTS would — the first sin- friends and protectors of youth, on an al- the best melodies and sections from vari-
gle from Taiji’s group prominently samples
Public Enemy’s “Bring the Noise.”) BTS has most spiritual level. (Later, they declared ous creators, who could be anywhere in the
since learned that their initial message,
along with later lyrics that grapple with that BTS also stood for “Beyond the Scene.”) world. “It’ll come back and they’ll say, ‘We
identity, self-love, mental health, and much
more, had enough wider currency to make “I didn’t want them to be false idols,” Bang love these two parts that you did,’ ” says
them spokesmen for a global generation —
literally: They’ve addressed the United Na- once said. “I wanted to create a BTS that August Rigo, a Filipino Canadian songwrit-
tions General Assembly, twice.
“When we wrote those songs, and could become a close friend.” er who worked on the 2020 singles “Black
those messages, of course, it wasn’t from
some knowledge or awareness of the edu- In December, BTS had another Number Swan” and “On.” “ ‘Then we have this verse,
cation system in the United States or any-
where else,” says RM. “We were teenagers One U.S. hit with “Life Goes On,” a wistful and we have this section that we’re not quite
at that time. There were things we were
able to say, from what we felt and from our ballad that stands as the definitive pop re- sure of.’ So it’s like piecing a puzzle togeth-
experiences about the unreasonableness of
school, or the uncertainties and the fears sponse to the pandemic year. But because er in collaboration with BTS. . . . It wasn’t like,
and anxieties that teens have. And a com-
mon thought and a common emotion res- the lyrics are almost entirely in Korean, the two days and it was done. No, it was two,
onated with youth, not just in Korea, but in
song received virtually no play on U.S. ra- three months, maybe six or seven revisions.”

dio; its chart position came from streaming In at least one case, BTS ended up

and purchases, and the obvious demand scouting collaborators on their own. After

wasn’t enough for radio to reconsider. RM, the Brooklyn production duo Brasstracks

for one, is still hopeful that particular wall noticed one of their songs playing in the

will shatter. “If they feel it, I think they will background of a behind-the-scenes BTS vid-

change,” he says. “The barriers are still eo, they tweeted about it, and soon heard

breaking down. It keeps going on and on.” from Big Hit. “The next thing we knew there

In the meantime, BTS is following up was an email, saying, ‘Hey, we’re doing this

“Dynamite” with another English-language and we’re looking for this’ and ‘BTS is into

single, “Butter,” due May 21st. Like the light- your work,’” says Ivan Jackson, one half of

hearted “Dynamite,” “Butter” has no heavy Brasstracks, who previously worked with

message. It’s a pure, swaggering dance-pop Mark Ronson and Chance the Rapper. “I just

celebration in the retro vein of Bruno Mars, think they have their ears to the ground in

6 ROLLING STONE

a way they don’t get their flowers for. Be- missed their fans, missed the road. “When partners. Now Big Hit’s success is our suc-
cause we’re not huge producers. They didn’t we couldn’t go on tour, everybody felt a cess, and our success is Big Hit’s success.” It
get Timbaland.” Brasstracks sent a beat that sense of loss, a sense of powerlessness,” also meant a multimillion-dollar windfall for
ended up as the track “Dis-ease,” with a says Jin. “And we’re all sad. And it actually the group when HYBE went public last year.
bridge section added by Pdogg and another took us a while to get over those feelings.” “That’s very important,” RM says with a grin.
producer, Ghstloop. “It was a really awesome “The roar of the crowds and ARMY is There’s a pitfall waiting for BTS that
case of collaboration,” says Jackson. something we loved,” says Jung Kook. “We every enduring male South Korean group
“Dynamite,” produced by U.K.-based miss that more and more. And we long for has faced: In light of ongoing tensions with
pro David Stewart (not the Eurythmics guy) that more and more.” North Korea, men are typically required to
and written by Stewart and songwriting BTS are as passionate in their advoca- start a 21-month term of military service by
partner Jessica Agombar, another Brit, was cy for their ARMY as the fans are for them. their 28th birthday. Jin turned 28 on Decem-
an exception. HYBE put out word that BTS “The ARMY is a lot more levelheaded than ber 4th, but that month, the government
were ready for an English-language single, even we are,” says RM. Fans have lived up to passed a law offering him a direct reprieve:
and BTS and their label chose the song from BTS’ faith in them again and again, assem- “A pop-culture artist who was recommend-
multiple submissions. “ ‘Dynamite’ would not bling professional-level documentaries, em- ed by the Minister of Culture, Sports and
have been released if BTS had been on tour barking on ambitious research and trans- Tourism to have greatly enhanced the im-
as scheduled,” says Bang. “The project was lation projects, and collectively matching age of Korea both within the nation and
chosen to shift the mood as a response to BTS’ million-dollar donation to Black Lives throughout the world” would now be able
the pandemic situation. I thought it matched Matter in just 25 hours. to wait until he’s 30 to serve.
BTS, and that the song’s trendy vibes would Over the course of the group’s exis- “I think the country sort of told me,
be better expressed if sung in English.” tence, none of the members of BTS have ‘You’re doing this well, and we will give you
a little bit more time,’ ” says Jin. Military ser-
Fans have lived up to BTS’ faith in vice, he adds, “is an important duty for our
them again and again, assembling country. So I feel that I will try to work as
professional-level documentaries, hard as I can and do the most I can until I
embarking on ambitious research and am called.”
translation projects, and collectively Assuming that the law isn’t changed
matching BTS’ million-dollar donation again, offering another extension, Jin un-
to Black Lives Matter in just 25 hours. derstands it’s possible BTS could go on
without him for a while. “I have no doubt
Forming a Covid bubble, BTS kept acknowledged any romantic relationships, that the other members will make a good
busy in the studio last year, first with “Dy- though several have alluded to dating be- decision because, you know, this is not
namite” and then November’s album Be, fore they joined. The official line is they’re something that I can tell them what to do,”
the mellowest and most mature work of too busy. The usual pop-group thinking he says. If they do spend time as a six-piece,
their career, which includes “Life Goes On.” might suggest BTS worry about fan re- “I’ll be sad, but I’ll be watching them on the
But 2020 still provided their most time off action on this subject, but Suga, at least, internet and cheering them on.”
since they joined Big Hit as trainees. For rejects that idea. “I have a hard time un- Suga is 28, J-Hope is 27, and RM turns
years they’d cheerfully mention how behind derstanding this question,” he says. “The 27 this year, so their service looms as well.
on sleep they were. Last year, they final- ARMY is a diverse group. In this hypothet- At least one K-pop group, Shinhwa, got back
ly got some rest, and all of them speak of ical situation, some may accept it, some together after their own time in the military,
months of reflection and self-discovery. For may not. Whether it’s dating, or something and are still a group after 23 years. BTS may
Suga, who had been quietly struggling for else, they’re all individuals, and they will well aspire to that kind of longevity. “So, yes,
years with a shoulder injury sustained while understand things differently.” we will want to see ARMY as we do now,”
moonlighting as a delivery boy during his In 2018, BTS negotiated a renewal of says V. “I’m sure it will work out so that we
trainee days, it was a chance to finally have their contract with Bang’s company, com- can continue to see ARMY. About military
surgery. “There were times,” says Suga, now mitting to another seven years as a band. service, or what will happen, we haven’t dis-
feeling better, “when I couldn’t lift my arms Two years later, they were given a financial cussed it in the specifics amongst ourselves,
in a full range of motion during a concert.” stake in HYBE. “It’s very meaningful,” says but I’m sure it’ll work out eventually.”
The bond between BTS and their RM, “for us and also the company, that we For Jimin, at least, BTS is eternal. “I
ARMY is real, and the guys have genuinely admit and recognize each other as true don’t think I’ve ever really thought of being
not a part of this group,” he says. “I can’t
imagine what I would do on my own. I think
when I become older, and I grow my own
beard” — he gestures to my facial hair and
smiles — “I would like to think that at the
end, when I’m too old to dance, I would just
like to sit onstage with the other members
and sing and engage with the fans. I think
that would be great, too. So I’d like to keep
this going as long as I possibly can.”

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