The King truly feels the weight of his crown…
Rm with his first solo album Indigo, breaks another record, is the first Korean artist to reach the top of the Sales Chart of Billboard in just a few days since the release of the album (it is currently at position #2). Discover with me why Rm's blue-toned album is so appreciated worldwide.
The other night I was returning from a dinner in Rome, I was in the car alone and as often happens, I decided to accompany my return journey with some good music.
Good music, each of us has specific tastes, personally I listen to a lot of international music, mainly American or English but above all i BTS. Calling them Boy Bands is an understatement, they are no longer kids in their late teens but complete artists in demand internationally for collaborations and various institutional events. Just think of the songwriter and producer Min Yoongi; to J-hope who is now captured by America as soon as there is a musical event, whether for Lollapalooza or whether it is to welcome the new year from Time Square; JungKook who is now called the Korean Michael Jackson after his impeccable performance at the opening ceremony of the world championship in Quatar.
And then there's him… RM, the "leader" who releases his first solo album, Indigo, after the first mix-tape "Mono" in 2018.
I decide to start Rm's new album and listen to it in the silence of the night while I walk through the streets of the historic center of Rome, the Christmas lights reflect on the colored glass Blue.
Indigo is a masterpiece, a piece of art in all its elements: already when the box set arrives home in such a delicate hardback you understand that its interior is precious, like the writing on the side: when you place it on the shelf of your bookcase you will read "The last archive of my twenties“…this is the archive of a guy called Kim Nam Joon.
RM presents us with his album like an artist presents his installations in an art gallery, you immediately notice the bond he has with the painter Yun Hyongkeun, in the photo he poses next to his painting dressed in indigo jeans, almost as if he were a blueprint himself: from his Mono mixtape which we can see as a white colour, Rm takes definition artistically and comes out in Indigo blue colour. It is the color of RM's musical maturity.
Kim Namjoon has a style and color different from the music of Bts to which he collaborates as a songwriter and rapper, here we see him in a personal and genuine perspective that is almost shocking at times, because he offers lyrics of profound solitude contrasted with pressing beats, as if to highlight his often feeling inadequate and oppressed by the task imposed on him, that is, leader of the most famous band in the world and spokesperson for an entire nation, Korea.
Rm is an artist who has many facets, capable of surprising with every verse. He does this with his ten songs on the album, 8 of which are collaborations with various artists. It is his desire for us to listen to the album in the sequence he established numerically starting with the first Yun where we find him singing with Erykah Badu. Yun is the diminutive of the artist Yun Hyongkeun, from his words he takes inspiration for this song: "feel human before making art", living a real life with your own feelings of love, anger, compassion among people and deeply understanding what others feel, rather than proclaiming yourself artists and locking yourself in a studio without knowing what's outside.
Still Life with Anderson Paak
You can't lock me in a frame… I'm movin'
The second track is Still Life with Anderson Paak. It has a cadence with a funky and cheerful rhythm, the words take inspiration from the symbolism of "Still living art": in this song Rm sees himself as a painting, as the leader of Bts and often subject to admiration and criticism from the observer, he says_ "You can't trap me in a frame" because I am subject to change and growth, so I will not always be the same person you see in the painting.
The third track follows with a collaboration with singer and producer Tablo. The song is titled All day and from the text we can deduce words of strength that are transmitted by these two boys, both of whom were targeted by haters in the past, words that instill courage "We have dynamite in our DNA – we fight all day".
Forg_tful of friend and producer John Eun with Kim Sawol, Closer, Lonely and Change pt.2 they make us appreciate Rm's humanity in all its aspects. These tracks immediately reveal the feelings he felt in these seven long years of preparing the album and those who are Bts fans are almost shocked by them, feelings of loneliness, of resentment towards someone, of anger in some ways.
Wild Flower with Yujeen it's a song that cuts fast and explodes inside your soul just like the play on words that Rm wants with the verses "Flower Work – Fire Work“.
No.2 with Park Jiyoon closes the archive of twenty years of RM with a nostalgic rhythm, but which urges us not to look back and not have regrets, because whatever we did in the past helped us to improve and become who we are now.
Vanessa Ranauro ©All rights reserved