Looking back on the production of “No More Dream”f in their debut album 2 COOL 4 SKOOL, SUGA recalls:______When we were working on that song, I sat in Pdogg’s room in the Cheonggu Building and thought, ‘Aw, I really want to go back to the dorms,’ thousands of times a day. We should be going to the dorms to sleep by seven or eight in the morning, right? But we had to finish our work by the end of the day, for days on end … That was the hardest part.” I pick up my pen every night And close my eyes after the sun rises These lines from “We are bulletproof PT.2”g were a perfect encapsulation of RM, SUGA, and j-hope’s reality as they composed the lyrics for the songs in 2 COOL 4 SKOOL. They would practice all day to polish their razor-sharp choreography until they were in frame-by-frame sync while also working on the songs for the album. In the little time they had in between, they would shoot their vlogs and other videos and manage the blog. “No More Dream,” the title song of the album, loomed ahead like the final boss at the gates of BTS’s debut. Jimin describes what the song was to them: ______It’s not difficult now, but back then, the choreography … We could barely breathe. The dance accompanying “No More Dream” is made up of big, wild moves, which had to be performed in perfect sync. Each member had to start and stop each movement with military precision, tense and ready throughout the entirety of the performance—and make sure to jump up to exactly the same height. And as mentioned earlier, even their diet was under strict control. Jin discusses the team’s vibe at the time: ______In “We are bulletproof PT.2,” we all had to show off our abs, so we worked out, and we couldn’t eat what we wanted because of the prescribed diet … Everyone was cranky. While the members pushed their physical limits in the practice studio and the dormitory, RM, SUGA, and j-hope also pushed the limits of their souls in the studio, struggling with the lyrics to “No More Dream.” RM had to compose a staggering twenty-nine versions of the rap lyrics for this particular song. ______I once went up to Hakdong Park near the Cheonggu Building and screamed out loud. The rap just wasn’t coming, and I felt like I was suffocating. Producer Bang Si-Hyuk had the final say on which version of the lyrics would be chosen, and, at the time, he and RM had different perspectives on the rap lyrics to the title song. RM explains: ______Bang Si-Hyuk thought we should reflect the latest trends. But I’m from the generation that grew up with Nas and Eminem, so there was a point of conflict. It was about whether or not I could accept what we call “trap flow,” and it was hard for me to accept. Our big issue with the debut album was how we could quickly reflect new hip-hop trends, and that’s where Bang PD and I had trouble coming to a compromise. A common misconception outside the idol industry was that management companies were in charge of everything about the music, taking the lead in musical creativity. But even the most finely produced songs cannot shine if the idols performing them are untalented or unwilling. The idea of “giving voice to teenage realities through lyrics” sounded great in a vacuum, but someone had to go about composing those lyrics. Bang Si-Hyuk’s decision was to have the composers in the group—RM, SUGA, and j-hope—also take leading roles as lyricists from the very first album. But as the differences in RM and Bang’s perspectives showed, it was extremely difficult to produce lyrics that would satisfy both the hip-hop scene and the idol industry. No one would have been surprised if this gambit had failed. RM, too, confesses that accepting the musical direction of their first album was no easy task. ______I listened to a lot of music, almost as if I was studying. I got these contemporary-style songs and listened to them, analyzed them. It actually took more than a year, I think, before I started to genuinely love those trends and internalize them.These were just some of the many things BTS did to challenge their own experiences and values. The lyrics to “A Typical Trainee’s Christmas,”h, i uploaded on the blog on December 23, 2012, and January 11, 2013—before the production of “No More Dream”—illustrate the difficulties they faced: (Even this year) I pulled all-nighters practicing (Cry) I’m still a trainee I really wanna debut next year The blog post “A Typical Trainee’s Christmas: Review,”j posted around the same time, shows the members practicing their choreography, holding recording sessions, and celebrating the holiday late at night over a tiny cake. When asked how he endured that period, Jin, who uploaded the post, answers: ________I was a trainee for almost two years, so it naturally became a part of my life. I thought it was about time for me to debut as an idol, but I didn’t really want to look for another company, so I thought I should do it here (laughs). So I decided to do the dances I learned at this company … It was just that kind of feeling.
And the Edge
The blog post “A Typical Trainee’s Christmas: Review” also includes complaints like “I thought we might get a Christmas holiday, but we all ended up going on vacation to the Bangtan Room,” and “The Boss is terrible / Won’t take us out to dinner once, even after we made that song asking for a company dinner…” Even in the most liberal of countries and cultures, it is not easy for a pre-debut trainee to publicly voice his complaints about the label’s CEO. And Korea is a country where idol groups cannot be launched without significant capital, time, and planning know-how. In spite of this, Bang Si-Hyuk had the members write their own blog posts and publicly share their thoughts and feelings as trainees alongside their mixtapes and journal entries. Once training had become part of daily life, as it had for Jin, the trainees began to talk about themselves in a candid and genuine manner. This was the beginning of the team that would become Beyond The Scene.11 Jimin reminisces: ______When the hyungs were writing the lyrics, they kept asking me for input too. “What do you think about this kind of content?” “What are kids around you like?” “Aren’t any of your school friends chasing their dreams?” Stuff like that. I was really thankful. RM, SUGA, and j-hope’s lyrics in 2 COOL 4 SKOOL reflected the stories of all the BTS members. This is the reason “We are bulletproof PT.2” discusses the anguish of rappers crossing from the hip-hop scene to the idol industry and writing rap lyrics all night, while also including Jung Kook’s personal experience as a teenager with an atypical student life, in the lyrics “Instead of going to school, I sang and danced all night in the practice rooms.” When this song was written, BTS members were neither rappers on the hip-hop scene nor idols on the public stage. Rather than covering up the realities of the precarious trainee’s life in hip-hop swag or idol fantasies, they used hip-hop techniques to showcase their experiences exactly as they were. This was the unique position BTS took from the beginning of their career, and the perspective they continue to take in telling their stories. Rather than follow the grammar of either hip-hop or idol music, they used the languages of both genres to talk about themselves. In that sense, 2 COOL 4 SKOOL is almost a log of their journey: how a group of nameless trainees who could neither take center stage nor live ordinary lives finally made their debut. The album begins with “Intro: 2 COOL 4 SKOOL” (Feat. DJ Friz) with the rap lyrics “We’re simply telling our stories on behalf of teens and twentysomethings.” In “Skit: Circle Room Talk,” the members talk about their childhood dreams. “Outro: Circle room cypher” has each member tell his own story in cypher form. Finally, the lyrics of the CD-exclusive hidden track “Skit: On the start line” clearly describes their pre-debut life: “Trainee / In a way, it’s exactly who I am / But a difficult word to define / Not belonging anywhere / Not really doing anything either / That kind of stage /A transition period.” Most importantly, this track ends with the following lyrics:
Because I’m a trainee
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This was their self-definition: trainees in the Korean idol industry. But not just any trainees: ones who poured their trainee lives into hip-hop form and turned their debut album into a record of their experiences. From the beginning, BTS’s music reflected the lives of the members. The B-side tracks in 2 COOL 4 SKOOL, “Intro,” “Interlude,” “Outro,” and “Skit,” became a template on which later albums would be formatted. It was a time when only the tiniest minority knew of the Bulletproof Boy Scouts. But BTS were already forging their own identity, one they hold on to today.
