BTS’s RM talks about the debate over the definition of K-Pop today.
“The truth is that I’m not really interested if people think we are part of K-Pop or not,” he said. BTS has released several songs in English since last year. Does this allow the group to still be framed in the K-Pop genre?
Member RM broached the matter in an interview with Rolling Stone magazine in Japan and believes that BTS is, today, a musical genre of its own. “The genre called K-Pop is expanding at a tremendous speed. For example, some of the so-called K-Pop groups in Europe, India and China are made up only of foreigners.
Although there are no Korean members, they are doing similar things to K-Pop“.
BTS is also growing fast. And now, the K-Pop genre has expanded considerably. “Some might say that K-Pop is a genre in which a Korean sings songs in the language. This is surely K-Pop. But what about ‘Dynamite’? Sung in English. However, all the members are Korean, so some people might call it K-Pop,” RM said.
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He also understands who calls “Dynamite” just pop music and not K-Pop, because it is sung in English. “But the truth is, I’m not really interested in whether people think we are part of K-Pop or not.
The important thing is that we are Korean and we sing pop songs,” he said. “That’s why BTS itself is a genre,” he added.
“The debate over the definition of K-Pop is extremely important to the music industry, but it doesn’t make a lot of sense to the members,” he admitted. In the interview, RM also admitted that most of the pop and hip-hop that he listens to is American.
“But I think Koreans have their own community-based personality and identity,” the artist reflected.
“So we created a completely new genre, merging the two elements of East and West. Some would call it K-Pop, some would call it BTS, and some would call it ‘hybrid music’ for the fusion of East and West.
Anyway, that’s what we do,” he concluded.
