The Best of BTS RM
Thank you representatives of the member states of Group of Friends of Solidarity for Global Health Security, UNICEF Executive Director, Excellencies, and distinguished guests from all around the world. It is a great honor for us to have this valuable opportunity to speak in a session in the 75th UN General Assembly. My name is RM, the leader of the group BTS, and two years ago here, I asked your name.
I urged you to let me hear your voice. And I let myself be filled with imagination. As a boy from the small city of Ilsan in Korea, as a young man standing at the UNGA, as a global citizen of this world, I imagined the limitless possibilities before all of us and my heart beat with excitement.
But COVID-19 was beyond my imagination. Our world tour was totally canceled. All of our plans went away, and I became alone.
I looked up, but couldn't see the stars at night. When I start feeling lost, I remember my face in the window, like Jungkook said. I remember the words I spoke here two years ago: love yourself, speak yourself.
Now more than ever, we must try to remember who we are and face who we are. We must try to love ourselves and imagine the future. BTS will be there with you.
Our tomorrow may be dark, painful, difficult, and we might stumble or fall down, but the stars shine brightest when the night is darkest. And if the stars are hidden, we'll let moonlight guide us. If even the moon is dark, let our faces be the light that helps us find our way.
Let's reimagine our world. We're huddled together, tired, but let's dream again. Let's dream about a future when our words can break out of our small rooms again.
It might feel like it's always night and we'll always be alone, but the night is always darkest before the first light of dawn. Life goes on. Life goes on. Life goes on. Life Life goes on.
Life goes on. Life goes on. Let's live on. Dear class of 2020, it's been a strange year so far, but you made it. Today, we might not have flowers and we might not have graduation caps.
What we do have is possibly the most special graduation ceremony in history. Never before have so many gathered to celebrate a graduating class for their achievements and their dreams. You could be watching us from your bed or from your living room, alone or with somebody.
Wherever you are, you will all soon be breaking out of one world to soar into another. Ten years ago, it snowed really hard on the day of my middle school graduation. I remember that day clearly because I took a picture with my friends and kept it as my Messenger profile for the rest of my school years.
On that day, I was just a boy who had closed just one chapter, ready to pen another. And I remember that feeling. It's really thrilling and breathtaking.
It was a moment I felt most like me myself, a feeling I wanted to hold onto forever. So, as a fellow individual in his 20s, all the way from Seoul, Korea, I want to say congratulations. We're very excited for what lies ahead of you.
To be really frank, we still feel very unsure and unsettled as we speak, just like that day we left the school gates for the last time on graduation day. Some say we have achieved so many things, but we stand no different from any other youth in their 20s, our graduation caps still pressed to our heads and awkwardly peering into the face of reality.
The recent unforeseen events completely changed our plans, and the sense of loss and anxiety we felt then are still with us today. The fear of an obscure future as our daily lives turn upside down is a moment of realization of the self, the realization of what makes me a true me myself. As just musicians, we are pulling ourselves together by making music.
We write songs, we produce, and we practice as we think about the people we love. And it connects to the world during such difficult times. And with music, we hope we can bring you smiles and courage again.
And V just mentioned memos and the photographs. For us, our way of remembering and communicating is to make music. For you it could be anything.
In our music and in our hearts and in the time that we break out of ourselves, we're alone but also together. We may be seeing each other through just a camera and this small screen, but I know your future will bloom to something much bigger and magnificent. Graduates, friends, family, faculty, today you stand with us the largest graduating class in history.
Congratulations class of 2020. Woo. Thank you Mr. Secretary General, UNICEF Executive Director, and all the excellencies and distinguished guests from across the world. My name is Kim Namjoon, also known as RM, the leader of the group BTS.
It is an incredible honor to be invited to an occasion with such significance for today's young generation. Last November, BTS launched the Love Myself campaign with UNICEF, building on our belief that true love first begins with loving myself. We've been partnering with UNICEF's End Violence program to protect children and young people all over the world from violence.
And our fans have become a major part of this campaign with their action and with their enthusiasm. We truly have the best fans in the world. And I'd like to begin by talking about myself.
I was born in Ilsan, a city near Seoul, South Korea. It is a really beautiful place with a lake, hills, and even an annual flower festival. I spent a very happy childhood there, and I was just an ordinary boy.
I used to look up at the night sky and wonder, and I used to dream the dreams of a boy. I used to imagine that I was a superhero who could save the world. And in an intro to one of our early albums, there is a line that says, "My heart stopped when I was maybe nine or 10."
Looking back, I think that's when I began to worry about what other people thought of me and starting seeing myself through their eyes. I stopped looking up at the night skies, the stars. I stopped daydreaming. Instead, I just tried to jam myself into the molds that other people made.
Soon, I began to shut out my own voice and started to listen to the voices of others. No one called out my name, and neither did I. My heart stopped and my eyes closed shut.
So like this, I we all lost our names. We became like ghosts. But I had one sanctuary, and that was music.
There was a small voice inside of me that said, "Wake up, man, and listen to yourself." But it took me quite a long time to hear music calling my real name. Even after making the decision to join BTS, there were a lot of hurdles.
Some people might not believe, but most people thought we were hopeless. And sometimes I just wanted to quit. But I think I was very lucky that I didn't give it all up.
And I'm sure that I and we will keep stumbling and falling like this. BTS has become artists performing in those huge stadiums and selling millions of albums right now, but I am still an ordinary 24-year-old guy. If there's anything that I've achieved, it was only possible that I have my other BTS members right by my side and because of the love and the support that our Army fans all over the world made for us.
And maybe I made a mistake yesterday, but yesterday's me is still me. Today, I am who I am with all of my faults and my mistakes. Tomorrow, I might be a tiny bit wiser, and that'd be me, too.
These faults and mistakes are what I am, making up the brightest stars in the constellation of my life. I have come to love myself for who I am, for who I was, and for who I hope to become. I'd like to say the one last thing.
After releasing our Love Yourself albums and launching the Love Myself campaign, we started to hear remarkable stories from our fans all over the world how our message helped them overcome their hardships in life and start loving themselves. Those stories constantly remind us of our responsibility. So let's take all one more step.
We have learned to love ourselves, so now I urge you to speak yourself. I like to ask all of you what is your name? What excites you and makes your heart beat?
Tell me your story. I wanna hear your voice. I wanna hear your conviction.
No matter who you are, where you're from, your skin color, your gender identity, just speak yourself. Find your name and find your voice by speaking yourself. I'm Kim Namjoon, and also RM of BTS.
I'm an idol, and I'm an artist from a small town in Korea. Like most people, I've made many and plenty mistakes in my life. I have many faults, and I have many more fears, but I'm gonna embrace myself as hard as I can, and I'm starting to love myself gradually, just little by little.
What is your name? Speak yourself. Thank you very much.
