By JUWON PARK and MARIA SHERMAN
South Korea’s SEOUL (AP) It’s official. The seven members of the wildly successful K-pop group BTS have all finished the required military duty in South Korea.
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Rapper Suga, who apparently opted to work as a social service agent over joining the military because of a shoulder issue, was the final member of the band to be released on Wednesday.
All seven members have now formally returned from their enlistment duty.
The other six—RM, V, Jimin, Jung Kook, Jin, and J-hope—were all army personnel.
Four members of BTS—RM, V, Jimin, and Jung Kook—were released from South Korea’s required military service earlier this month.
The oldest member of BTS, Jin, was released in June 2024, and J-hope was released in October.
Later this year, BTS is anticipated to get back together. Here are some things you should know about the group before that much-anticipated homecoming.
The Korean group known as the Bulletproof Boy Scouts, or BTS for short, made their debut in June 2013 under the banner of Big Hit Entertainment, which is now HYBE.The seven members of the group are Jung Kook, Jimin, V, RM, Jin, Suga, and J-hope.
Before finally taking off with their 2016 album Wings, the trio released three full-length albums after launching in 2013 with the hip-hop-heavy single album 2 Cool 4 Skool.
When BTS’s song “DNA” made it into the Billboard Hot 100 in 2017, they made history and became the first Korean boy band to do so. Their worldwide fan base was further fueled by their appearance at the American Music Awards, which followed the song’s triumph.
With good cause, the band is widely recognized for having introduced K-pop to the global scene.
BTS smashed milestones and limits throughout their repertoire. Their first all-English single, Dynamite, which debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 2020—a first for an all-South Korean musical act—went platinum five times.
BTS was not only the world’s largest K-pop group but also the largest boy band in general during the height of its fame.
The Recording Industry Association of America claims that they have received numerous platinum certifications. Among their platinum achievements are:
2018’s Mic Drop
2020’s Map of the Soul: 7, Idol, and Love Yourself: Answer
2021’s Be, and Butter, the song of the summer;
and well-known joint ventures Boy With Luv, with Halsey, and My Universe, with Coldplay.
Additionally, BTS has received five Grammy Award nominations.Dynamite became the first K-pop artist to be nominated for a Grammy for their first performance in the best pop duo/group performance category.
As the septet’s popularity spread over the world, they also became global social justice activists.
In their 2018 speech to the UN General Assembly, they introduced the Love Myself campaign, which is a collaboration with UNICEF and aims to boost young people’s self-esteem while preventing bullying, abuse, and violence.
By contributing $1 million to the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020 and condemning racial violence and injustice, the group demonstrated its continuous dedication to human rights action. In response, their global fan following, referred to as ARMY, matched the donation in less than a day.
When they were summoned to the White House in 2022 to speak with President Joe Biden about anti-Asian hate crimes, their combined influence on music and social concerns reached a climax.
All physically fit men between the ages of 18 and 28 are legally obligated to serve in the South Korean military for 18 to 21 months as part of a conscription program designed to ward off North Korean aggression.
Athletes, classical and traditional musicians, and ballet and other dancers are granted exceptional exemptions under the statute if they have won major awards in certain competitions and are thought to have improved their national standing.
Such advantages are not granted to K-pop singers or other celebrities.
However, after the South Korean National Assembly amended the Military duty Act in 2020, enabling K-pop artists to postpone enrollment until age 30, BTS decided to delay their duty until then.
Before the group’s management agency declared in October 2022 that all seven members would carry out their obligations, there was a contentious public debate in 2022 about whether or not to grant BTS members exceptional exemptions from mandatory military duty.
By tiering their enlistments, BTS allowed its members enough time to concentrate on individual endeavors during the group’s hiatus.
Happy in 2024 and Echo in May of this year were the two EPs that Jin released. In 2023, Suga released his first solo album, D-Day, under the stage name Agust D.
RM’s second solo album, the elastic, experimental Right Place, Wrong Person, and j-hope’s EP, Hope on the Street Vol. 1, were both published in 2024. J-hope went on his first solo tour earlier this year.
Jimin released two albums, Face in 2023 and Muse in 2024. 2023 saw the release of Jung Kook’s retro-pop debut, Golden, as well as V’s debut album, the silky alt-R&B Layover.
Maria Sherman, an AP Music Writer, covered the story from New York.
