BTS Eighth Member | The Life: Year 2018

Chapter 39- Kings and Queens

June 20th, 2018:

We had been incredibly busy with FESTA, finishing up with the comeback, as well as finishing recording for the next album. We had already started learning the choreography for Idol and I'm Fine. On top of also organizing our upcoming tour and learning choreographies and performances for our solo songs. After discussing it with the rappers and our company producers, it'd been decided My Mind and Me (originally by Selena Gomez) was going to be my solo song. All of my songs were a little too depressing for this album, so I'd made one from scratch especially. It turned out the songs I'd made were still quite depressing, but at least the overall message was positive.

I'd actually had several arguments with Bang PD about the song I was going to put on the album. I'd initially wanted to put Kings and Queens (originally by Ava Max) but he had said it was too feminist. I had argued that 95% of our fans were women anyway. As the album had developed, he then counter-argued that the vibe and musicality of the song just didn't fit the album. In the end, I had given in on the compromise that Kings and Queens would be released at FESTA, which it had been to an overall positive response. Ilbe and anti-feminist were obviously upset, but they were already pissed with me, I was at a point where I felt I could just keep leaning into my feminist ideology since any belief in feminism was abhorrent for them, so why not just be honest and stop hiding it. There was nothing more to lose I felt, but Big Hit and Bang PD had their reservations which resulted in us butting heads a lot on the future vision for myself and the group.

--------------- Flashback ---------------

I was in a conference room with Bang PD, Hyowon (Pdogg) and Dohyeong (Slow Rabbit) discussing my solo in the upcoming album. The rappers were meant to be with us, but it seemed like their styling meeting for their cypher performances for the concert was going longer than expected. I'd sent everyone a couple of possible songs, Kings and Queens and My Mind and Me, each quite different and unique but I felt like both could fit in what we'd recorded so far for the album both in terms of lyrics and beats/melody. However, I was leaning more towards Kings and Queens because I felt like I wanted something more upbeat to perform for this album.

We'd just finished listening to both songs together to get a refresher on what they sounded like.

"I like both the songs Y/N. I'm forever impressed at how far you've come as a producer," Bang PD said leaning forward and looking at me intently smiling slightly, "but I think My Mind and Me is more of what we're going for with this album. You know it's all about finally loving yourself as you are and I think this song really encompasses that".

"Yeah, I agree," Hyowon said nodding, "I like Kings and Queens, but I think it might come off a bit too... too... too much," he says after looking for the right words for a few seconds, "it's a little too strong, you know what I mean".

"I mean... no, I don't think it is," I answer honestly in a calm tone, "... like, well... I can see it's stronger than like what everyone puts out, but for me... it's pretty par for the course I feel".

"It's. just... it's very strong and can be alienating to some. We want our songs to have the ability to be loved by all," PDnim continues to explain.

"Who is it alienating? Like 95% of our fans are women and I'm pretty sure by now any anti-feminists have left the fanbase," I counter, still calmly. I was intent on trying to remain calm in order to not lose the upper hand and seeming too "emotional". I was hopeful that if remained calm and understanding they would see me more as an equal and try to come to a compromise I preferred.