Amateur Recommendation Hour: Agust D

Today’s recommendation is the most personally honest album of Korean music I’ve yet heard. Pure rap/hip-hop is usually not my area of expertise. There are people that are exponentially more qualified to gauge it’s actual level of quality than myself so I would say take my recommendation with a much smaller grain of salt than I would usually ask of you.

But this record resonated with me and regardless of my “qualifications” (let’s be honest I don’t have any) I thought that alone was worth talking about. Maybe I end up recommending it to someone who can ultimately say a lot more about it than I’m about to.

Agust D by Suga from BTS is packed to the brim with raw, unfiltered, unapologetic emotion and personally painful experiences while still conveying a feeling of hopefulness to the listener. Recalling the days of his youth he would rather forget and the rise of his star, he gives us a very personal recollection of his feelings during what I believe he would consider to be some of the lowest moments of his life.

With central themes of self-identity, obsession, depression, ambition, and envy it is an examination of his life and career to that point. Trying to convince himself that things he’s had to sacrifice, how he has had to compartmentalize himself as an artist versus himself as a human being, and wrestling with whether or not it was worth it in the end. Lyrically it is one of the most bold records of Korean music I’ve yet heard.

If you are someone who loves hardcore rap then this recommendation is a no-brainer. In fact maybe you could help me understand what makes this such an effective album. You’d probably do a much better job than I just did! 

I will say this though: don't let the language barrier keep you away from this record. Remember, in the information age, full lyrics translations are widely available, even if the nuances of the language are lost in translation.