South Korean rapper and songwriter RM (leader of K-pop group BTS) has spent a long time contemplating dualities. His first mixtape RM (2015) depicted him with a face divided as he questioned life and death, light and dark, true and false. His subsequent release mono. (2018) was a gray haven from these pressures, built in the period his group was hurtled into international stardom.
RM’s first official album Indigo (2022) was released after BTS closed Chapter 1 and announced their group hiatus. Sun-bleached and blue, it provided a twist through the influence of artist Yun Hyong-Keun. A prominent abstract monochromist of the previous century, Yun’s seemingly black brushstrokes had in fact been layers upon layers of burnt umber and ultramarine blue. Perhaps RM would explore the myriad of his base layers? Perhaps Kim Namjoon’s natural permutations could blend together and be incorporated back into his public presentation of RM?
Indigo was a sleek powerhouse, but it didn’t satisfy such questions. The first track “Yun” promised a madness we didn’t get. “Still Life” was stylistically triumphant, but the lyrics said otherwise: “My life on constant display / It’s still life, still, life / The past’s gone, the future’s unknown / Catching my breath on a crossroads / Wanna be free of this canvas frame.” Even the exultant lead single “Wild Flower” was a desperate plea. As RM’s bandmate Jimin noted, the inner self was still buried deep.
It took Right Place, Wrong Person (2024) to unearth that self and “throw up” the workings of his mind. And it sure is a hell of a ride, leaving no chance for regret about a road untaken. RM in his 20s had always left blank space for possibility. But RM at the cusp of 30 has filled up both the visuals and music with a discordant energy in an ever-changing flow of genres and rhythms across a tight 35 minute, 11 track album.
As he declares at the end of Track 1, “Right People, Wrong Place,” his musings on this topic have him “feelin’ high on a forest fire.” We’re to crash headlong into a rollercoaster of soundscapes precisely crafted in order to feel unplanned and unpredictable – and as it becomes increasingly clear, he’s darkly reveling in not conforming to expectations.
RM could do all the “right” things in “Nuts,” for he knows what they are. He could make this the right place, play the right chord, take you right to the moon. But he won’t. Let the toxic character/s who had their iron-grip on him all through his 20s be put to rest. “out of love” follows, in which RM leaves the frame entirely: “imma burn down all the love and hate, the right, the wrongs / even the goddamn world.” In a world of relative truth, he’s rewriting morality by reckoning with his own desires rather than society’s rightwrong expectations.
For fans, such an album is something to celebrate, whether or not it’s to their tastes. This is the man who had explained BTS’s need — his need — for a group hiatus back in June 2022; who had shared his fear of growing out of love with music to Pharrell in November 2022. So with Indigo, he documented what he’d wanted to say in his years of BTS. Then a tumultuous series of events had him realize he had more to say as Kim Namjoon.
San Yawn, the creative director of the musical collective Balming Tiger whom RM had previously worked with for “Sexy Nukim,” was the one to challenge him to leave a record of his current self before enlisting for mandatory military service. It was his friendship and creative outlook that allowed for RM to embark on a multimodal artistic exploration of all the Kim Namjoons he could have been, and thus incorporate them back into the sure nature of our reality. Mazes of time, space, and the mind star prevalently in his music videos, a nod to his fascination with the multiverse.
Sure, he had composedly told NME that he holds no great regrets, for “Doctor Strange taught me this version of the universe is the best one.” And sure, he had said in the FESTA video for 2022 that even if there was a multiverse, he’s glad he became an artist and part of BTS in this one. But this new album has allowed him to lose himself in the “ifs.” RM noted that he’s in debt to many, having collaborated with others instead of creating from scratch. Yet this is the album’s strength, for it emphatically taps into the collective human fear of one’s innate wrongness and the cyclic journey of rage, disappointment, exhaustion, and renewal.
Having said this, Right Place, Wrong Person is absolutely Kim Namjoon in essence. He’s the public figure of “Monster” once again consumed in “out of love,” the confident cypher-slinging celeb in “Groin,” the out-of-place wanderer of “uhgood” with the pain/joy of “moonchild” in “Come Back To Me.” Jimin could quickly conclude upon first hearing that this album was once again like peering into the pages of his diary. Indeed, the flashes of euphoric anger and despair of teenage Namjoon and the aching retreat of battle-weary Namjoon of his previous albums is now cycled through in a more mature fashion.
There are also sly references to BTS that bleed through in the second half of the album, despite him distancing himself from the group at the time of this production in order to “switch off” all the burdens of his RM persona. In the progressive jazz track “? (Interlude)” that denotes the half-way mark and a quieter resentment, he questions, “Would it be better if I / didn’t know you,” noting later that “you know you got the best of me.” It’s hard not to think of the BTS track “Best Of Me,” thus meshing the toxic nature of individual relationships with the public discarding of a celebrity.
It’s a perfect segue into hip-hop track “Groin,” a classic RM diss track against his haters that borrows his bandmate Suga’s catchphrase to say, “When I think I’m gonna crash, that’s the time I step on the gas.” In the face of carrying sky-high expectations of the music industry and his home country as the leader of BTS, he spits out that he’s “not a f*ckin’ diplomat” and only reps himself. As a clincher, RM calls out to the “b*stards” to “get yo’ ass out the trunk,” signifying he’s not going to let them ride on his coattails.
An eerie lull after the peak of the wildfire is “Heaven.” As if RM is studying the charred remains, he tells the listener, “Take my heaven / Oh, you ain’t invited / Go grab your knife / And watch me collapse.” “LOST!” overlaps glee with sorrow, with a last-minute grab at a “silver cloud,” and a call out to “dump it on the ground / pick it up, throw it in the trunk.” Does he want a keepsake of his gleeful wanderings? Or is he locking it up in acknowledgement of the temptation to let loose again?
“Around the world in a day” is a conclusive loop of the album’s main themes. RM raps, “Once you’ve lost the path, the view is more beautiful / I’m like a lost thing, desperately hoping to be found / We who’ve lost our way, we ain’t look so pitiful / Only now do we smile and raise our middle fingers.” In response, Moses Sumney croons that right and wrong can only be sorted with time. So it’s fitting that the final track feels like a two-parter, with the second act infusing past/potential experiences with newfound wisdom.
“Come back to me,” he calls. Perhaps it is to his lover from “Nuts,” whom he now wants to do the right thing for and roll to the moon. Perhaps it’s to himself, who had pled in “Wild Flower,” “When all this fame turned into shackles / Please take away my desire from me / No matter what it takes / Oh let me be myself.”
To his beloved, RM soothes, “You don’t have to be the anything you see.” He understands they’re “tryin’ not to be that something in this sea.” In the music video, too, peace descends once he comes face to face with the compassionate other. Only then can they finally be “fine tonight.” Philosophical inquiries and frenetic emotions dissipate in the face of empathy. They are to rest, to feel right, before having to burn up again with new crackles of anger and yearning.
It is in this space that we’re invited to remember the layers of Kim Namjoon. He’s not just the always-eloquent, consistently-thoughtful leader of worldwide sensation BTS. He’s also not a cinematic experience to be consumed and thrown away. If we remain after the “Credit Roll,” a man of typical dualities is revealed: one who’s poetic and vulgar, angry and patient, wise and reckless, mad and at peace.
Editor's note: This story has been updated.
