BTS RM recently opened up about being the leader of the most famous boy band in the world and foraging his individual identity through his solo album.
In an interview with Hypebeast, BTS leader, Kim Namjoon aka RM reflected on his journey of defining who he was as an individual outside of the group he spent the last decade with, all the whilemaintaining his appreciation for his roots as the group’s leader.
He said, "[BTS], of course, is a crucial part of my life. But it does not entirely represent who I am as a person, and I had to release this album to stand on my own as an individual."
According to Koreaboo, RM reveals that his first full-length album called Indigo, which was released on December 2, after his two mixtapes,chronicles the end of RM’s twenties, which were a whirlwind of emotional highs and lows.
"In my journey with BTS, I drifted further and further away from that world and was tormented by the thought that the people that I liked – and the people who enjoyed the same music as I – did not have any love for me. I often wondered whether I made the right decision by joining a boy band."
The 28-year-old, who started his career as an underground rapper and hip-hop artist under the stage name Runch Randa, further talked about his fear that the artists he started his journey with, looked at himdifferently after he, in his mind, became more like a pop idol and less like a hip-hop artist.
The rapper came to terms with the fact that "good music is good music" and credited Western artists like Post Malone, Drake, and Lil Uzi Vert for inspiring him to think of music in a broader sense with their genre-bending chart-topping releases.
He shared, "I decided to stop thinking about the road not traveled, and started thinking more on the inevitability of what I’ve become, as well as accepting the best version of myself, which allowed me to create this album where I am completely true to myself."