BTS gave fans a sneak peek of new music on Wednesday in a trailer for their upcoming album Map Of The Soul: Persona, and the focus has fallen on RM's reclamation of self. The extensive trailer features a look inside a new song with RM, or Kim Nam-joon, in the spotlight, exploring the idea of personal definition and the "who am I" concept he's teased before. But what has fans excited is the "But Namjoon" concept that has long been used to shame the K-pop star when others step outside their expected boundaries.
The new song features a line in Korean, translated to "Three syllables of my name, and the word 'but' that should come before any of those," according to a translation and screenshot posted by a variety of BTS fans on Twitter.
The term "But Namjoon" was created using RM's own first name. The phrase is one "that K-pop community uses when one of their [favorite artists] do something problematic and they want to redirect the attention to Kim Namjoon, rapper and leader of BTS, and to justify their [favorites] actions," according to Urban Dictionary. Through the phrase, the K-pop star, and leader of BTS, has become a scapegoat for blame on all said problematic issues in the K-pop community.
The phrase began when Namjoon was accused of a variety of controversies, including plagiarizing lyrics from other rappers. He addressed the accusations with apology in 2015. "First, I would like to sincerely apologize. Even though I am just at the start of my career, as an artist I often feel the pain of creating something," he said, as reported by Digital Music News. "When I feel unable to write music out of my own inspiration, I get my inspiration from talking to friends, reading books I like, watching movies, interviews and letters from fans. Whenever a line leaves an impression on me, I write the line down in my memo."
The action of taking back "but Namjoon" in the series can be compared to other artists using hateful speech against them to their own creative advantage, like Taylor Swift turning the snake emoji into a symbol for her own power, and a tour image staple. For RM's angle, it's reclaiming a phrase that has been used as a guilt or shame statement again his past and showing the world who he really is now.
Fans of the group praised RM for his creativity and strength in using the term to his advantage. "Namjoon reclaiming the 'but Namjoon' card," wrote Twitter user @THICJ00N. "This ain't big d*** energy...this is colossal schlong power."
Others were glad he was aware of the phrase, as well as the support from his fans. "The fact that Namjoon even knows the phrase "but Namjoon" means he's seen it before which means he's also seen all of us coming to defense and decided to end it himself with one simple verse!!! God I'll never get over this power move," wrote @myoonies.
Map Of The Soul: Persona is expected to be released on April 12. It's the first album released by BTS since Love Yourself: Answer in 2018.
This article has been updated to reflect that Namjoon is RM's first name.
