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BTS' Suga aka Min Yoongi's collaboration with NELL's frontman Kim Jong-hwan for the track Dear My Friend was hailed by the BTS ARMY for its heart-wrenching lyrics and melancholic melody. In an exclusive interview by Yuka Kuwabata for mi-mollet on November 29, 2023, Kim Jong-hwan revealed why he agreed to collaborate with the BTS global superstar.
During the interview, the NELL vocalist was asked how he felt when he learned that the BTS rapper-songwriter cried while performing Dear My Friend during his last show on the D-DAY World Tour. Kim Jong-hwan replied by stating that Yoongi told him that he sobbed a lot on the last day.
Kim Jong-hwan continued by saying that he believed he understood why the BTS idol cried. Translated to English via @061313purple on Twitter, he stated:
"SUGA-san told me that he cried a lot during the final day and I felt like I could understand him. I think he must’ve sorted out the feelings he had long suffered from and thought 'it’s about time I send them off'."
For the unversed, during the last show of Suga's D-DAY World Tour on August 6, 2023, the rapper cried profusely on stage while performing the song Dear My Friend. This marked Suga's first-ever solo tour, which followed the release of his debut solo album D-DAY on April 21, 2023.
Kim Jong-hwan shares why he decided to collaborate with BTS members Suga and RM for their separate projects
Kim Jung-hwan is the guitarist and singer for the modern Korean rock band NELL. Together with Lee Jae-kyung, Jung Jae-won, and Lee Jung-hoon, his school friends, he created the band, which made its debut in 2001 with the album Reflection Of. Additionally, a couple of his standout tracks include Stay and Four Times Around the Sun.
Furthermore, Kim Jong-hwan is hailed as the "Emperor of the Adult Ballad" in South Korea, owing to the craze surrounding him among the middle-aged population of the nation. All of NELL's songs are written, composed, and orchestrated by him. He also writes tracks for several other singers, such as Wanna One, Girls' Generation's Taeyeon, and INFINITE's Sungkyu.
In the song Dear My Friend, BTS' Suga explores his conflicted sentiments about an old friend from his trainee days, who moved away from him. After accepting the invitation to be included in the song, the NELL leader heard it for the first time.
The interviewer asked the artist to shed light on his initial thoughts on hearing the song and the latter mentioned that he was touched by the lyrics. Kim Jong-hwan then mentioned that he wondered how he ought to translate and structure the song's lyrics since it expresses a range of emotions, including feelings of helplessness grief, and animosity towards himself and his friend.
As a result, his first arrangement of Dear My Friend was very different from the final version as it concentrated on the "mixed emotions." Nevertheless, the song grew more expansive and simple as the process continued.
"First of all, I was moved by SUGA’s personal lyrics. I thought very hard on how I should interpret and arrange it, since it’s a song that includes various emotions such as feeling of helplessness, sadness and resentment towards him and his friend," he told the publication.
As the interview went on, Kim Jong-hwan was questioned about whether he had ever had a friend who made him feel resentment or any other emotion that the song Dear My Friend captures. In response, the NELL vocalist confirmed that he has experienced similar feelings but could not speak about the same in detail.
The interviewer, Yuka Kuwabata, then asked him about his collaboration with BTS leader Kim Namjoon aka RM on the track everythingoes. Kim Jong-wan was asked to share how he felt when he learned that RM had penned the song "while thinking about him" and what made him collaborate with the BTS leader.
NELL's frontman stated that he believed there were some similarities between the lyrics of everythingoes and the songs of his group—which are melancholy but yet vaguely hopeful. Kim Jong-hwan continued that he and BTS' RM resembled one another in that regard since the structure of their music begins softly and progressively builds up.
"I think it was because the lyrics, which are lonely yet faintly hopeful, overlapped a little with NELL’s music. The composition, which starts off quietly and gradually builds up, is also the composition that NELL likes, so we were similar in that aspect too," he said.
The track everythingoes is from the mixtape Mono by BTS' leader Namjoon aka RM and was released in 2018. Along with reflecting on the paradox of life—that everything fades away and no one's cycle of existence ever ends—the song tackles topics of monotony, grief, and loss of identity.
Recently, BTS' Suga welcomed renowned musician Kim Jong-hwan from the Korean rock group NELL in Suchwita episode 19, which released on October 17, 2023. The rapper spoke to his guest about producing music and other topics in the most recent installment of the drinking variety program.
Suga emphasized his reverence for Kim Jong-hwan—who has over 24 years of experience in the music industry—and spoke about how his music has influenced him.
