BTS, and other victims of the english language.

grammy's nominate music by a korean artist challenge: failed. again.

you’re cultured, right? open-minded?

when was the last time you listened to a song that wasn’t in english, or engaged with a piece of art not in your spoken language? scroll through your spotify. unless you are bilingual or a migrant, it is probably the case that you’ll be scrolling for a minute before you land on a piece of music you cannot immediately understand.

like most africans- in fact, like most black and brown people- i have a complicated relationship to english. this is the language that the oppressor brought to somalia’s shores, the language they used to call my people second class, animals, heathens. ungodly beasts. their hate manifested in the same tones i use now, words clipped in the same accent that now buys me social prestige when i go back home.

there, i am not somali but the girl who speaks like the english.

my great grandparents fought so that it was somali that was taught in schools instead of english, italian or french. people died for my right to speak the language of my ancestors. and now, when i write about those ancestors, i do it in the language that our colonial rulers classed as superior. i speak somali exceptionally, understand it as well as i do english- but i cannot write in it.

i do not dream in somali. i dream in english. you have to understand that admitting even this feels like a betrayal. the language of my subconscious is the language of my oppressor. english owns even my spirit.

it’s why i’ve been making a concerted effort to listen to music not in english; i do not want the language to have the monopoly on my inner world. if all i hear and process is in this forsaken tongue, then that’s all i’ll let myself be moved by- and that can’t be.

the grammy’s dropped their nominations a few days ago and - as ever- fumbled seismically. snubs galore, with normani, tinashe, little simz, schoolboy q and the likes all once more being traded in for nominations for the addison rae’s of the world ( i feel queasy). another notable theme of nomination night? the complete and utter shut out of asian artists- specifically the ‘k-pop’ artists who released some of the most lauded albums of the year.

[i should note here that even the word ‘k-pop’ rubs me the wrong way. what is this need to differentiate? is pop music not just a genre? it reveals an inherent white-centrism by needing a qualifier to make it clear that we think that any music not from the west is merely a variation of- a separate entity- to the ‘originator’. it’s that whole ‘the west and rest’ ass colonial distinction.]

the absence of BTS leader- rapper RM- from the nominations in particular felt especially egregious to many- and i have to agree.

right place, wrong place by RM.

RM’s right place, wrong person is one of the highest rated korean albums of the past ten years, garnering almost universal critical praise from publications that have often been eager to dismiss his solo work (looking at you rolling stone). fusing rap with jazz, funk and soft rock, the album is an existential exploration of what it means to be the front man for the world’s most popular boy band. namjoon spends most of the project trying to see is he can shuck the mask of RM without tearing off his real face. it is lonely and angry and hell-bent on showing you the ugliness he’s seen. that he’s capable of: it is a more imaginative and profoundly honest body of music than most of the work being commemorated by the recording academy.

and it’s getting nothing.

why? because it’s not in english and the grammy’s seem hell-bent on not inspecting themselves for an anti k-pop bias. so far, BTS remain the only korean act to be nominated for a grammy and have not won a single one. the group’s solo work- all brilliant and deliciously varied- seems to be non-existent in the eyes of grammy members. and it’s starting to really piss me off.

before we get to the white supremacy of it all though, i need to catch you up on the boy band who paved the way- even if the grammy’s refuse to accept it. get comfy.

welcome to a crash course on the BTS boys.

BTS- a guide for the uncultured

BTS - or the Bangtan Boys- are a korean band made up of seven members; RM, suga and j-hope [who make up the rap line] as well as jin, V, jungkook and jimin [who make up the vocal line]

their story is the stuff of hollywood films; seven teenage boys shoved into a years long training program, competing against hundreds of other prospects away from home, forced to become the very best performers, singers and dancers they could all in the hopes of one day debuting as a member of a boy band.

they survived it seems on little more than instant ramen and sheer force of will. korea has produced some of the greatest groups of our time, and not by accident. an entire industry comes together to create these stars, nothing organic or left up to chance. turning teenagers from children into sellable ‘idols’, worthy of worship is a whole business.

it isn’t their training that makes these seven different though; it’s the fact that each of them seems to be a genuinely singular musical talent- a talent that would in any other world let them be the face of their own group. you could put any of the boys in the center during a performance and it would work. BTS doesn’t have a weak point- and if it feels like i’m laboring on this point, it’s because it deserves to be.

think of one direction in their prime. when i tell you to think of which members had ‘it’, that star quality, you’ll probably conjure up two or three names tops. imagine if every single member produced music of the same quality harry styles has over the years. now imagine they could all dance better than their back-up dancers can, they rap, write their own music, and entertain a stadium of thousands of fans who don’t speak the same language as them. oh- and between them, they can perform in any genre.

be honest- can you think of a single living white music act who could pull off a BTS concert?

RM and suga are lyricists with pens of gold, writing things like “who said that humans are the animals of wisdom? to my eyes it’s obvious that they are the animals of regret” and sneaking nietzsche references into even the group’s pop songs. they’re nauseating over-achievers; RM holds the title of the youngest and most credited korean artist of the korean music copyright association. suga’s single “daechwita” made him the first south korean artist to ever hit number one on the billboard charts (a song that’s entirely in korean by the way), while jimin and jungkook have been collecting accolades for their solo work like they’re infinity stones.

are you starting to understand the hysteria?

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going through their early work helped explain further their appeal to me, those first few projects speaking to the disillusionment felt by korean teenagers growing up in a country in recession following years of fiscal decline, unaffordable housing and high youth unemployment. tracks like ‘silver spoon’ condemn the korean elders who refuse to accept that they had it easier than their children did, who still expect young people to do things like take on low paying jobs out of fealty and cultural respect as opposed to being compensated for their work.

At a part-time job, it's "all for experience"
At school, there's the teachers
My superiors use violence
In the media they go on about "the generation that's given up"

- BTS, Silver Spoon

how dare you criticize me for trying to make the best of a world on fire?

unsurprisingly, their early albums have a heavy hip-hop influence, building on the groundwork of korean mc’s like hong seo-beom and tiger jk as well as the american rappers the boys grew up on, including biggie and mf doom. where anger festers, rap music provides solace.

this is the other thing you need to understand about this group: they were never meant to succeed.

they were too angry, too critical, too ‘odd’ to be considered successes in an industry hell-bent on pumping out these shiny, 2D idols. in fact, their haters used to call them ‘dirty spoons’, the term indicating that they were too ‘low class’ to take seriously.

no one was willing to market them- so they decided to do it themselves, becoming youtubers.

it was practically unheard of to give fans as much direct access to a korean idol as BTS gave ARMY (their fanbase) as they started to grow. i’m talking daily vlogs, their own variety show were they’d complete in challenges, endless lives breaking down their performances.

they are so fucking meme-able, it’s astonishing.

they weren’t presenting themselves as ‘perfect’; they got into arguments on camera, and showed how hard they worked and cultivated inside jokes. someone on twitter said recently that their digital footprint proves that the group didn’t think they’d ever be famous and it’s so true.

instead of depending on a big machine label to sell them, they decided to back themselves. the korean public saw them in those initial days as a nuisance- the anti- boy band which is hilarious because as soon as they started to promote themselves online, they stared to build a following who worshiped them with even more intensity for their authenticity.

dark and wild is rebellion packaged in a mixtape. there’s nothing pretty or edit worthy about this early version of the bangtan boys. it must have been so liberating . korea holds their artists to an almost unforgivably high, inhumane standard and yet here come these scrawny little boys inspiring your daughters to rap these lyrics criticizing their elders and societal expectations at the top of their lungs.

Your parent and boss hate me.

-BTS, Pied Piper

the older they got, the more diverse the albums became genre-wise. slowly that adolescent anger gives way to a more tempered approach to addressing frustration (though sometimes as a treat we’ll get an angry BTS track). they don’t forsake the trap beats that brought them ARMY, but now add love ballads that give the vocal line- one of the most notorious vocal groupings in the country- their moment. the choreography gets more complicated, more technical letting the likes of jimin a chance to shine, the outfits sexier, the roles within the team even clearer.

when they need to seduce, RM pens a The Weeknd-esque dark r&b banger like ‘house of cards’ for the vocalists to croon in matching jet black suits. when they need to address those who criticize them for having spines and speaking up about the state of their country, the rap line pick up their mics and lay down cipher rebuttals so cold, they have their own fandom. and when they want to play pop princes, they do.

it’s almost a cruel cosmic joke that the songs that made them popular in the west like ‘dynamite’ and ‘butter’ are in many ways the tamest, most saccharine ones in their entire discography. that the english speaking world has fallen in love with the version of BTS that the naysayers in the early days told them they would never be.

i didn’t have enough space to include everyone. ARMY put down the pitchforks, abeg.

do that again, but in english this time.

if you watch a clip of the group performing on tour outside of korea, it’s hard to not feel anything but immense respect for them; australian teenagers rapping UGH! word for word, french youngsters harmonizing with jungkook like they came out of the womb speaking korean. their songs of course are peppered with english phrases and hooks but for the most part, they’ve stayed true to their language and refused to budge unless they feel like the story they’re telling needs them to tap into the language. it’s a rebuttal of the ‘only english is universal’ lie. music is universal. good art is universal.

watching them in american interviews is genuinely jarring; it’s hard to watch the self-centeredness that drips from these american journos who seem obsessed with treating them like some foreign oddity as opposed to just a group of musicians.

write more music in english, they say.

i promised myself at the top of the year that i would follow my curiosity, no matter what borders it crossed and my god what joy it’s brought to my life. what art; japanese funk from the 70s , nigerian soul music and rap music from the streets of seoul. BTS have been a part of that discovery, and it has been humbling.

we writers are words smiths; language is our be all and end all, i understand that but how gratifying is it to have to think for once in order to connect? discovering their stuff makes me feel the way i did when i was studying daniel defoe at university, digging up translations and deciphering double entendres. there’s one specific BTS song called ‘ddeang’ - a swaggery, cocky rebuttal of all the criticism the group faced for being too outspoken politically and socially- that just made that little nerd in me giddy when i got a translation from a korean friend of mine.

one of the verses uses the phrase ‘ddeang’ nine different ways in the span of maybe half a minute. it’s writing rooted in korean history, rich in reference. i would have never known it on first listen of course, but now that i do, it feels earned.

it is harder to connect to the writing but it should be hard for us; we are the outsiders.

by creating work in their language and allowing us to access it, they are sharing a piece of their heritage with us. it’s like removing your shoes before you step into someone’s living room- i leave at the door my western hubris, all those contaminating assumptions and humble myself. let me see as much as you want me to see.

let me humble myself enough to accept that i, the english speaker, actually don’t know everything.

with tv and film, there does seem to be a shift happening in terms of us seeking out work that isn’t in english. i’m insisting that we do the same thing with our music.

shogun came out this year and deservedly sweeped at the emmy’s. how did the cultural gatekeepers (balding white film and tv critics) react? with op-eds complaining that the show being as critically acclaimed as it was wasn’t fair because what about all the tv shows white people made? shouldn’t they get a participation emmy at least?

the answer is no. shogun is not to blame for your mediocrity.

in one interview, suga said something that stuck with me:

‘if you listen with an open heart, you will find something of ours to love.’

he’s right. white supremacy has robbed us of so much; do not let it rob you of the gift of art. our world view is molded by the work we let seep into our souls. if the only voices you let drift you off to sleep or comfort you resemble your own, you’re living a limited existence.

it’s been an interesting month playing the boys’ music around other ‘artsy’ snobby types. the reaction has always been some variation of-

i didn’t know those korean boys got down like this.

if only we spent as much time keeping an open mind when it comes to music as we did looking down our fucking noses at everything we didn’t understand, our generation might actually be half as cultured as we think we are. most people who follow me on twitter have been delighted to encourage my BTS deep dive but some have voiced their surprise at the fact that i’ve taken to the band as much as i have. my question to those people is why?

you expect me to be an effective culture critic; how can i be that if i’m not willing to confront my own biases? i’m convinced that part of this urge to shit on the band has to do with their fandom being predominantly made up of young women- and what is the culture but cruel to anything that brings joy to girls? men pledge allegiance to some defunct football team and we let them lose their minds once a week (i don’t watch football unless it’s international and my lionesses are playing so if they play more times, leave me alone), mostly judgment free.

what are game highlights but edits of their favorite athletes, minus a slowed down doja cat song? we need to let people love things earnestly. it’s hard usually to see why artists garner such devotion (the barbz are a science experiment gone wrong, i’m convinced) but here, i get it.

if anything, their mandated disbandment has made them all better, more interesting artists. they had some shit to get off their chest; pushed into boxes by an uncultured America, exalted as deities in korea incapable of making mistakes or even being in relationships. pushing against the titles that have been dumped on them, each in their own way. mostly, in their own language. always reminding us that they are korean artists above all else.

in the track i mentioned earlier ‘ddaeng’, RM ends his verse with the following lines:

you frogs who live up to your name
i hope you die in that well

being a ‘frog in a well’ is a korean idiom based off a folktale about a frog that believes that his home- the well- is the start and end of the world, unaware that so much more exists beyond its stone wall.

井蛙不可以語於海者，拘於虛也.
A frog in a well cannot discuss the ocean, because he is limited by the size of his well.
- Zhuangzi, The Way of Chuang Tzu

the grammy’s seem insistent on dying, stuck in that english-only well. don’t let yourself die alongside them.

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thank you so much for reading! my first paid post goes up next tuesday (!!!) and it’s a guide to de-colonizing your spotify, inspired very much by this piece. i’m so excited to share it.

let me know if there are any non-english speaking artists i should check out. and ARMY, i’d love your recs for underrated BTS tracks you wish would get more love. this was so fun to write i hope it was as much fun to read.

until next time loves,

aa xx