BTS: Bangtan Soyeondan (Beyond The Scene)

On May 21, 2017, the worldwide famous K-pop group, BTS, was awarded Top Social Artist at the Billboard Music Awards. Since that day, people who had not heard about the group became very curious about the group, but they weren’t the only ones that were curious many artist were too.  Artists, such as The Chainsmokers, that attended the awards took pictures with the K-pop group and even planned on doing a collaboration. This music collaboration was released on September 18 in BTS’s most recent album, Love Yourself: Her. Ever since, many other artists have expressed interest in collaborating with the group and television shows such as The Ellen Degeneres Show are invited the group for an interview and performance. It’s evident that they’ve gained a lot of popularity in recent months. Yet, most people still don’t know about the group so let me enlighten you a bit more about this amazing K-pop band.

BTS is a seven member group that is known for two names: Bangtan Soyeondan (Bulletproof Boy Scouts in English) and Beyond The Scene. The seven members are Rap Monster or RM (Kim Namjoon), Jin (Kim Seokjin), Suga or Agust D (Min Yoongi), J-Hope (Jung Hoseok), Jimin (Park Jimin), V (Kim Taehyung), and Jungkook (Jeon Jungkook). The age range of the group members is from 20 to 25, Jungkook being the youngest and Jin the oldest. BTS debuted on June 12, 2013 with a small company called Big Hit Entertainment, established by Bang Si-hyuk, who released their first song, No More Dream, and their first album, 2 Cool 4 Skool, which won many New Artist of the Year awards.

On July 24, 2014, BTS appeared in a show called American Hustle Life. During the show, they met hip hop artists Tony Jones, Warren G, and Coolio, who helped them learn more about hip hop. The group spent two weeks living together in L.A. learning how to give back and not let fame overpower them. The values that their mentors taught them such as giving back and staying true to oneself stuck to them and you can see that in their music, donations, and campaign.

BTS keeps making great music about daily struggles, that people can relate to, something most artist don’t do anymore. They also write songs about their lives as to how they got to be where they are today and about the goals they still want to accomplish. Their music is very unique and every music video tells a story that connects to the previous music videos they’ve done. Most important, what differentiates BTS from other K-pop groups is that they write their own songs and choreograph their own dances. Most K-pop groups don’t do that because they have their label companies do that for them. They’ve also donated to the 416 families that were affected in the Sewol Ferry Disaster, a disaster that occured in 2014 when a ship sunk killing 304 passengers and crew. Each of the 7 members donated approximately $8,500 with an additional $25,500 from their agency. The group has also recently started a campaign with UNICEF, called Love Yourself, an anti-violence campaign that is being launched globally.

Before, BTS was an unknown music group trying to make their dreams come true. Now, they’ve become the most successful K-pop group in the world. Many people believed they wouldn’t make it because they were contracted from a small company but BTS is now traveling all over the world to perform, win awards, and direct their music videos. Their dreams have finally come true and now they have new goals. I hope this article gave you an inside look at the up and coming K-pop group.