BTS' Suga Wanted to Leave Music Making in the Early Stages of His Career

V wasn’t the only member of BTS who struggled during the K-pop band’s earlier days — Suga dealt with his fair share of emotional lows too, he revealed on the Tuesday episode of his Suchwita drinking show.

The rapper invited Kim Jong-wan, the singer of Korean rock band NELL, onto the show. Suga explained his admiration for the band’s lyricism, and commented on how rumors of Jong-wan’s demeanor — he was called “Kim devil” in the press — mirrored some of his own behaviors.

share“Whenever I listen to NELL’s music, there’s always a sense of sadness and depravity. All that is captured in the music. Of course, when I was young, I also had a lot of anger and rage — anger against the world and against the system, but as I made my mixtapes, a lot of those negative emotions got reduced,” the BTS star shared.

He continued, “During D-DAY, compared to D-2, people said a lot of that rage was gone, but I don’t think that can be helped. I don’t think I need to bring back the emotions I’ve already dealt with. Back then, I was distressed and wanted to quit, but those thoughts went away through music, so now I’m thankful for those times. It was thanks to those moments that I can do all this now.”

Suga’s persistence resulted in him continuing his solo music endeavors. The new decade has seen the rapper release this year’s D-DAY and 2020’s D-2. 

Kim Jong-wan features on the latter project with track “Dear My Friend,” which he revealed was a daunting one for him to record for Suga. “I was actually really scared because the guide vocals were done by Jung Kook. It sounded so good! At first, I was like … ‘How do I sing this?'” the NELL frontman recalled.

“After that, our company told me to stop using Jung Kook for the guide vocals because if I do people would feel feel pressured,” Suga replied. “I really think Jung Kook is an incredible vocalist. When I played the guide for other people, they said it had a unique feel.”