Who is BTS?

Two years ago, not as many people could have answered that question than they could have today. Today, BTS has a ginormous fan base around the world. BTS is a South Korean band that has exploded in popularity in the last two years; they debuted on June 13th, 2013 with their single album 2 cool 4 Skool, featuring their debut song, “No More Dream” and had just recently wrapped up their first World Tour.  BTS stands for Beyond the Scene but formerly translated to Bulletproof Boy Scouts until they changed their English name in July of 2017.

The band consists of seven members with three primary rappers, RM, Suga, and J-Hope, and four primary vocalists, Jin, Jimin, V, Jungkook. However, some of the members sing and rap. Five of the members have stage names for a variance of reasons, a meaningful symbol, to conceal their identity, etc., which is not uncommon in the Korean music industry.

Their music videos are filled with expression and emotion that portray a storyline that leaves fans creating theories on what the message hidden beneath is. Unlike some groups, the members write their own lyrics, which are meaningful and of importance to them, touching topics of mental health, self-appreciation, and more. A few members produce music and the group has collaborated with a few artists. BTS has worked with Steve Aoki and have produced a remix of one of their songs released, “Mic Drop”. Aoki had just released a song with BTS “Waste It On Me”, with some of BTS’s vocals. Suga is most prominent with producing music, but RM, J-Hope, Jungkook, and V have all produced songs in the past and a couple of members have released their own mixtapes.

RM has multiple mixtapes, but his earlier mixtapes were released under his former stage name, Rap Monster. His most recent release was mono, which released on Oct. 23 this year, reaching the Billboard 200. J-Hope released his mixtape Hope World worldwide on Mar. 1 with the title track “Daydream” and Suga released his mixtape, Agust D, in 2016 under a different name, Agust D, which is DT [Daegu Town] Suga backwards. Members of the band have also done many covers of songs that are both in English and Korean, for example, Jungkook has done a cover of “We Don’t Talk Anymore” by Charlie Puth. But it does not stop there; Jin and V made a original soundtrack [OST] song for a Korean drama.

It is no off occurence to see a Korean singer acting in a drama show. One of the BTS members, V, had acted in a South Korean drama, Hwarang: The Poet Warrior Youth, which aired from Dec. 2017 to Feb. 2018. But the band also has many shows, variety shows, and even their own movie. Burn The Stage: The Movie has limited showings on Nov. 15, 17, and 18, but lots of their content can be accessed on an app called V Live [1]. With 16.9 million followers on Twitter, BTS also have a very prominent presence on social media (primarily Twitter) as well as their V Live channel.

The band has currently won fifty-one different awards in just 2018, not including wins at Music Shows, making them the Korean band with the most award wins in one year. One of their most recent wins was the MTV Europe Music Award for Biggest fans, and have been nominated for more in the remainder of the year. They have also won the Billboard Music Award for Top Social Artist for two years in a row [2017 & 2018]. Making their American television debut, BTS was the first K-pop band to perform on American television when they performed their song “DNA” at the American Music Awards in 2017.

However, alongside their music and entertainment production, BTS has a campaign with UNICEF called “Love Myself” which has raised over 1.4 million dollars since it launched in 2017. BTS and their company, Big Hit Entertainment, signed an official partnership with UNICEF on November 1st, 2017 and sponsored the global project #ENDviolence. On Sept. 24, BTS had spoken at the United Nations UNICEF meeting about their campaign and ultimately urging young people to speak up for themselves and be true to themselves.

No matter how you may have heard of these young men, they are by no means untalented. Their expressive personalities and music have impacted the lives of millions in such positive ways and are being recognized for it. Their ARMY[2] has supported them through the last five and a half years since their debut. The global impact of Beyond The Scene is far from over.

[1]  V Live is a South Korean live video streaming service that allows Korean-based celebrities to broadcast live videos on the internet and live chat with fans from around the globe.

[2] ARMY is the official fandom name of BTS, which stands for Adorable Representative MC of Youth.