BTS’ Identity, Making ‘Arirang,’ and the Meaning of Life

F
rom the beginning, BTS were never quite like other idol groups in South Korea, and their leader was a big reason why. RM, born Kim Namjoon, was a studious teenager whose only rebellion was “going to the street and rapping” when he signed on to BigHit Music, which eventually built BTS around him. His underground roots and alt-leaning instincts are most fully realized on his solo albums, Indigo and Right Place, Wrong Person, but he also pulls his group’s music in edgier directions — his favorite Arirang track is “FYA,” partly because it brought in JPEGMafia as a co-writer, with producers including Diplo and Flume. In conversation, RM holds nothing back, in part because he’s thinking of posterity. “I think this magazine and this interview with you is just another record,” he says, sitting in Hybe’s Seoul, South Korea headquarters in mid-February, “so I could look back to it when I’m, like, 50.” (To read our group cover story on BTS, click here.)

You’re a walking contradiction because your tastes are alternative, and yet you’re the leader of the biggest band in the world, making great pop music for the masses.
I think that contradiction is my crisis, but at the same time … those two sides, they are in myself. I listen to pop music. I love it… I always track the charts. Sometimes when I don’t want to use my brain too much, I just find the Top 50 Global and just listen to it.  But sometimes I feel like, “Man, this is not enough. I have to dig more.”

It’s so interesting to listen to your solo albums — it feels like the kind of music you might’ve made had there never been a BTS. It’s interesting to me that you could even get to that place as an artist mentally.
When everybody is saying yes, I really want to say no. When I’ve been doing BTS, I loved it, but I really did hate something, of course. And I just couldn’t deny all those feelings. But I think I knew what to show to the people or what to just hide and just make it into an album. When I came back as a solo, I was thinking of “Man, I gotta do this. I gotta say it, because if it’s seven [members], I have to do my role.” I have to sometimes be nice because lots of kids are watching us, but I started music on the streets, and by rapping. And I just can’t resist that. Sometimes I feel like I just want to do this shit… So when it comes to solo projects … I could express maybe without thinking of economic things.

Rolling Stone’s May issue features the most ambitious cover-story package in the magazine’s nearly 60-year history: eight different print covers in all. In addition to the group cover and story, we’re rolling out the seven solo covers — each with a video and solo Q&A — through Monday, April 20. Click here for continuing coverage, and click here to buy a box set of all eight covers.

Rolling Stone’s May issue features the most ambitious cover-story package in the magazine’s nearly 60-year history: eight different print covers in all. In addition to the group cover and story, we’re rolling out the seven solo covers — each with a video and solo Q&A — through Monday, April 20. Click here for continuing coverage, and click here to buy a box set of all eight covers.

I could do a song with Little Simz, Moses Sumney. Those are great artists…..  I really did try to, like, break the walls. I shaved all the hair. And tried to put no makeup on. And all those alternative sounds and artists. It was a really good challenge and I learned a lot, and that helped me a lot when it came back to the sessions in L.A. last year for this album.

In 2022, you told Pharrell Williams you still loved music, but that maybe you loved visual arts more. Did you come back around, and how was that journey for you?
I think music is always there. It’s just the root, and sometimes you just can’t resist when some music you love is turned on and you can’t help dancing to it or nodding to it. And I think visual art, sometimes it requires more background and training and more intellectual things. In the military, I listened to so many albums. I think I’m in love with music more right now, maybe.… The Dijon album was great. Spotify Wrapped, I checked it — Dijon’s album, I think I listened to it more than 500 minutes.

You made it clear that the singles BTS released in 2020 and 2021 left you confused about what the group’s identity was.
I think I still don’t know. I think a musician should talk with their music.… I think I’m still really confused because I thought in the military, maybe if it’s just all finished and we all come back … then maybe there’s some type of very precise, sharp consensus that we could all relate to, but which was not very true. So I think these 14 tracks could be the type of — it’s still blurry, but it could be just an answer to the people wondering, “What is BTS in 2026?” But I think for this album, I try to express more universal things — like love, hurt, nostalgia. I think I’m still into that, expanding personal experiences into universal emotions and feelings.

Watch the video interview below

 Have you thought of writing a book?
I really did. But as you read books more and more, I think I can’t, because there are too many great texts and writers in the world. I feel too shy when I just try to write something down. So I write diaries. I sometimes write stupid essays. Maybe years later, if I changed my mind, maybe I could combine them together and fix it. But I think writing a book sounds more scary to me than making an album.

What kind of things do you do to get out of your head?
I think walking is great because when you take a walk and see the landscapes, your actual physical body is moving. So you just let it just move. It helps me calm down, and I could maybe just let the stress and all those thoughts go and look at the skies. But Instagram, YouTube, Netflix — they are taking my time to watch.

Military service was not easy on you. Are you still recovering psychologically? How is that going for you?
I think I got out of it quite a lot, if we call it a cave… It’s been eight months and I think I’m good right now, but sometimes when I try to sleep and — when it pops up, [I say to myself], “Ah, man, forget it. I’m done. I’m not in the military anymore.” But that experience hitting the rock bottom, psychologically, in truth, I think that helps me. Now, I’m sleeping on my bed. I’m good. I think that’s the great self-therapy.

Did that experience change what you want out of life as a person?
I always want to live the present. The now. It’s just there are so many things in 2026 that are distracting you and me from living now. We’re thinking when you look at the Reels and all these Shorts that we’re living now, but they just keep distracting me. So I really miss the times that I just walked in the rain and thought of everything.

I think those were the times that I truly lived the present. I really don’t want to think of the past and the future because they’re just fantasy, but it’s really hard just to focus on where you are right now…. I always try hard to sometimes just put the phone down and maybe read books. I try hard not to think about the past [or the] future, because the future never comes.

You were in that dark place psychologically, and you got out of it. It wasn’t forever. What would you say to a fan who feels that way right now?
I got out of that — the crisis I had last year because of all those environments I had. I got out of it physically, but mentally, I’m just admitting it, that essential sorrow. I don’t know what it is called, but it’s always there in some part of my heart. I think I’m still in the middle of just meeting who I am. I’m maybe too sensitive, [more] than the others.… Or I think too much.

Sometimes I can’t sleep. But do you want to die? No. I try to love the life. Taking walks, good friends, drinks, music, [this] interview. I’m still fighting the demons, and I think maybe it could be forever, and forever is too long, like I said. But I just wanna say one thing: Simply, in short, I think life is fun … not because I’m [in] BTS or I’m a star in the spotlight. I think, just — life is fun and living is better.