Kim Nam-joon (Seoul, 1994) seems genuinely surprised that a group of fans recognized him a few days ago on the streets of Bilbao.
“You want to think that maybe in small towns, on the other side of the world, you can go unnoticed…”, says the rapper known as RM and better known even as the leader of BTS, the K-pop boy band that in 10 hectic years has broken all the records of the world music industry, Bilbao included.
Last summer its seven members announced a hiatus to develop solo projects and do their mandatory military service in Korea.
His fans, the ARMYs, 72 million on Instagram alone, are eagerly awaiting their announced reunion for 2025. RM assures that he is too.
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K-pop, K-beauty, K-whatever... Journey to the source of the rage for all things Korean
He has come to Spain to promote his album
Indigo
(published in December) and in passing visit the Guggenheim, the Thyssen, the Prado, the Picasso Foundation in Barcelona... "I have seen tons of
goyas
and I have been caught by the eyes of
El Greco ,
but I prefer
Las Meninas
”, says the rapper.
The first track on this amateur collector's album is called
Yun,
in honor of the abstract painter Yun Hyong-keun.
“They call him the Asian Rothko, but what interests me is his life: he suffered the Japanese invasion, the war, he was tortured by the government, but he never gave in.
In his work I see anger, sadness, complexity, beauty ... ”.
Image of 'Indigo', RM's first solo album, in which you can see the painting 'Blue' (1972) by Yun Hyong-keun and a Chandigarh chair designed by Pierre Jeanneret./ Courtesy of BIGHIT MUSIC
Ask.
The song opens with the verses: "Fuck the trendsetter / I'm going to go back to the age of 9 / when I was more human".
Does the stratospheric success of K-pop dehumanize the artist?
Answer.
You start your career very early and as part of a group.
There isn't much time to be an individual, but that makes K-pop shine: very young people, trying so hard at the same time... You generate an energy that you only have in your twenties.
You fight day and night to perfect the choreography, the videos, the music and there is an explosion, a Big Bang.
From our 20s to our 30s, we invested all the energy and time we had into BTS.
You get success, love, influence, power, and then?
The root of everything remains: music... What was the question?
Q.
Does the system dehumanize?
R.
My company doesn't like how I answer this question, because I admit it in part and then the journalists throw their hands up, "it's a horrible system, it destroys the youth!"... But it's part of what makes this industry so special.
And things have improved a lot, at the level of contracts, money, education, now there are teachers, psychologists...
Q.
Korean record labels train their artists for years, you lived with your peers from 16 to 19 before you debuted as BTS in 2013. What did your parents say?
R.
My mother spent two years: "Go back to studying, you were so good at it, follow your path, go to University, make music a hobby!"... But there was no turning back.
Q.
The biggest lesson of your time as an apprentice?
A.
The dance.
I was incapable.
Q.
And what was lost by being so?
A.
University life.
View this post on Instagram
A post shared by RM (@rkive)
Q.
That cult of youth, of perfection, of the overexertion of K-pop... are they Korean cultural traits?
A.
In the West people just don't get it.
Korea is a country that has been invaded, razed, split in two.
Only
seventy years ago
there was nothing.
We received help from the IMF and the UN.
But now, the whole world is looking at Korea.
How is it possible, how did it happen?
Because people work fucking hard to improve.
You are in France or the UK, countries that have been colonizing others for centuries, and you come to me with “oh my gosh, you put so much pressure on yourselves, life in Korea is so stressful!”.
Well yes.
This is how things are achieved.
And it's part of what makes K-pop so appealing.
Although of course there are shadows, everything that happens very quickly and very intensely has side effects.
Q.
What is the biggest prejudice about K-pop?
R.
That it is prefabricated.
Q.
What would your career be like if you had developed it on the alternative circuit or in another country?
A.
I often think about the multiverse, and the lesson of
Doctor Strange
is always the same: your version of the universe is the best possible, don't think about others.
There is nothing better than being a member of BTS.
Q.
Did you envision this version?
A.
Not at all.
My dream was not to be a
K-pop
idol .
I wanted to be a rapper, and before that, a poet.
Q.
Among your influences there are rappers like Nas or Eminem, groups like Radiohead and Portishead, but you never mention
boy bands.
Q.
The Beatles were also called
a boy band
... I'm not comparing us, they were the creators of everything.
But I guess he means NSYNC or New Kids on the Block: bands whose pop music I actually liked, even though I wasn't a super fan… What got me was rap: rhythm plus poetry.
Q.
You say that you get jealous of those you admire, for example?
A.
From Kendrick Lamar, always.
And from Pharrell Williams.
It is living history, I would like to be, perhaps in the future.
That's why I don't paint, being jealous of Picasso or Monet would be too much.
Q.
If you collect, how do you choose the pieces?
R.
I've only been there for four years and I've been changing.
My focus is 20th century Korean art.
But I'm not Getty or Rockefeller...
Q.
You don't do it to invest.
A.
I guarantee it.
If I wanted to invest, I would buy black artists, women, emerging Indonesian... My goal is to open a small exhibition space in about 10 years because I think Seoul needs a place with a young taste, but respectful of the Korean legacy, which I also like. would like to bring artists like Roni Horn, Antony Gormley or Morandi.
Q.
Did you always have the collector's bug?
R.
I have collected toys, cars or figures by Takashi Murakami, then
vintage
clothing , and then furniture, I love Charlotte Perriand and Pierre Jeanneret [both Le Corbusier collaborators], but my favorite is George Nakashima.
Q.
On your album there are songs from very different genres, some critics say it's inconsistency, others versatility...
A.
I think the word gender will disappear in a few decades.
R&B, Hyperpop, Jersey Club, UK Drill, Chicago Drill, K-pop!
They mean nothing.
Music is an accumulation of frequencies that puts people in a certain mood.
Q.
Are you sick of the “K-” tag?
R.
You can get tired of being called K-pop on Spotify, but it works.
It is a premium
stamp
.
The guarantee of quality for which our grandparents fought.
Q.
Anderson .Paak, Youjeen or the elusive Erykah Badu participate in your album, how did you convince her?
R.
He knew BTS because his daughter is a fan, but that's not enough.
I had to persuade her, I sent her a text with Yun's story explaining why she needed her wise queen voice for those verses.
Q.
You mix English and Korean sometimes in the middle of a phrasing, how do you decide?
A.
Words in different languages have different textures;
the same message, with a different brushstroke.
It comes naturally to me.
I don't play instruments, I compose and create melodies with my voice, which is my instrument and most of my songs begin with words.
Q.
You have also gone through various identities, as a teenage rapper you were Runch Randa, already in BTS Rap Monster and then RM (for Real Me).
Has he thought about using his real name?
R.
[Laughs] We all have a past, a black history, we say in Korea.
Runch Randa was my nickname in an RPG, then I wanted to be, you know, “a rap monster!”, then I grew up… I prefer my name to be known by as few people as possible, I'm not John Lennon, Paul McCartney, I can checking into a hotel quietly and I like that.
Q.
Your way of dressing has also changed a lot.
R.
I went through the XXL t-shirts and the baseball caps.
Then I got into high-end brands… As Rap Monster gave me to wear only black and white [He rolls his eyes up and shrugs].
Now I'm interested in timelessness, I go through trends, I'm looking for
vintage jeans,
cotton t-shirts, natural things, that don't shout “hey, I'm here!”.
Q.
It is rumored that you are going to collaborate with Bottega Veneta whose show you have just been invited to in Milan.
A.
I would love to.
Although I lost interest in brands, because of fashion weeks and that constant change of Pantone... Bottega is different, they don't use logos, they have a history with fabrics and leather, they don't even have Instagram, they are beyond fashion passenger.
Q.
How much does it weigh to drag an army of fans?
R.
You cannot walk in the middle of nowhere without being recognized and weighed by the standards to which you are subject.
But you have to grow up and stick with it, not feel sorry for yourself like “oh, I just want to be normal!”.
Look, if you want to think that fame is a rock, it's a fucking rock;
but it has given me what I was looking for: to gain influence and financial freedom as quickly as possible to make the music I want without worrying about the charts... I'm not there 100%, but I try to focus on the noise inside not outside.
Q.
And how do you face thirty?
R.
I had never experienced such a confusing time.
For a decade I was the leader of BTS, and it was very stable and fun, always going up.
In 2023 a lot of things have changed, professionally and personally, although I can't count it.
About to turn 30, I like myself more than when I was 20. Now I will spend a year and a half in the military, something very important in the life of every Korean man.
And afterwards, I'm sure I'll be a different human being, hopefully better and wiser.
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