Today at 12am KST ( 8:30pm IST) J-Hope ,from worldwide famous boyband BTS, released the 2021 take of ‘Blue Side’ on the third anniversary of his first mixtape, Hope World. He worked on the song with frequent BTS collaborators ADORA and Hiss noise. Although the release had taken everyone by surprise, he was instantly on the trending list and his streams drastically increased.
Who is J-HOPE?
J-hope, whose real name is Jung Ho-seok ( nickname – hobi), was a part of an underground dance team before joining BTS but learned to rap after joining the group. Now, J-Hope is not just the rapper and dancer he is also a singer, producer, and songwriter!
During a documentary ‘Bring the Soul: The Movie’, he recalled that when BTS members were creating stage names for themselves, he said that he wanted to have “Ho” in his name. At first, his name was just J-ho, and after a lot of brainstorming, the team came up with J-hope. He told Time that “it would be hugely meaningful for me if I can become, like my namesake, hope for someone in the world – not even some grandiose peace, but just a small shard of it.”
His go-to line is ” I’m your hope, you’re my hope. I’m J-Hope!”
J-hope is an acclaimed singer and dancer but was never known for his rapping abilities before joining the K-pop boy band. In fact, it was revealed by him that he was not a rapper at all. He stated that he learned rapping by taking lessons and interacting with other rappers, who helped him understand this new form of music.
How did J-Hope write ‘Hope World’?
In 2018, when ‘Hope World’ was released, J-hope became the third member of the group to put out an individual mixtape, giving BTS army of global fans a taste of his own vision.
While talking about ‘Hope World’, J-hope stated that it took him around two years to develop his debut solo mixtape. In the interview, he also added that he got influenced by group members, RM and SUGA, and how they released their own mixtapes while giving their 100 percent to BTS projects. “The team always comes first, so I focused on our projects as BTS and tried to make time in the hotel room, on the airplane, and whenever I could find a few minutes”, J-hope told Time in 2018.
The cover art for the full version features doodles by Korean contemporary artist, Eddie Kang.
J-Hope took to the Bangtan Blog to share his thoughts about the reworked version of Hope World’s closing track: “I wanted to show that I am getting a little bit of musical maturity…. it was released with a strong desire to continue to challenge, develop, and come back with growth.”
The full version is as calming and addictive as the one he released 3 years ago. Fans are diving into the lyrics and are appreciating his deep thoughts as well as the musical bit of the song. The video on YouTube gained 1 M likes in over just an hour, which is a good record even though BTS group music videos sometimes get 5M within the first hour.
Armys are also editting the cover art and even creating their own versions of the art/track!
You can listen to the track here!
J-hope ‘Blue Side’ Lyrics
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