“I’ve been damaged after which put again collectively so many occasions,” BTS chief RM advised the style model 032c in his ultimate interview earlier than enlisting within the Korean army final yr. “I spotted that the individual I feel I’m doesn’t actually exist.” On his heady second solo album, RM digs into that existential dilemma, interrogating the connection between his world-conquering offered self and the “bizarre younger man named Kim Namjoon” that he could be if he hadn’t taken the pop-star path.
RM’s lyrical trip is made much more mind-expanding by the music laid down by RM and his collaborators, together with San Yan of the Okay-hip-hop collective Balming Tiger and the Dallas duo DOMi and JD Beck. Constructing on the sonic palette of RM’s 2022 solo debut Indigo, Proper Place, Incorrect Individual is psychedelia-tinged and soulful, its lyrics’ intense self-interrogation balanced by music that looks like an invitation to additional explorations.
“Proper Folks, Incorrect Place” kicks off the album on a leery be aware, RM turning over the title’s 4 phrases as if the fitting mixture of them will unlock a core fact whereas claustrophobic synths shut in on him. From there, RM digs in; “Nuts,” which pivots out of a blown-out robo-funk bass, finds RM in a stop-start seductive mode, wrestling between wanting somebody and feeling down on love, whereas “Domodachi,” which options an help from the British MC Little Simz, depicts RM and his buddies closing ranks, with an insistent woodwind loop and a livid guitar riff appearing as de facto clubhouse doorways.
Even the extra upbeat songs have a way of unease about them. “Heaven,” has gauzy guitars and a steadily thudding bassline which cloak its unease; “Take my heaven/Oh, you ain’t invited/ Go seize your knife/ And watch me collapse,” he sings as backing vocals ooh and ahh round him, turning the concept of give up into one thing startlingly lovely. “LOST!” is peppy with a sticky-sweet hook, however RM’s proclamations of liberation are countered by admissions that he feels “lonely as fuck” and apprehensive about how he’ll “by no means love whereas I’m low.” The Moses Sumney collaboration “Around the globe in a day” is a stunner, blossoming from a tightly wound duet accompanied by an acoustic guitar into glitchy bed room soul earlier than taking full flight into fierce funk-rock, RM taking up all comers (together with “digital trendsetters”) as he picks up the mic and throws down the gauntlet.
“I’m an individual who has a lot dust, filth, love, kindness, and consideration in me that I really feel l would go insane if I didn’t carry it out candidly, into the world, not directly,” RM advised 032c final yr. Proper Place, Incorrect Individual grapples with the internal and outer dualities RM sees and feels on daily basis in fascinating trend, its seek for which means coupled with music that’s as intensely curious as the person making it.