THE PHILOSOPHY OF AGUST D

A deeper look into Min Yoongi, SUGA and Agust D — the masks of the same man

- RIDDHI CHAKRABORTY

This May, BTS’ rapper and producer SUGA made his solo comeback with his alias Agust D. As expected, it was a comeback of record-shattering proportions, the success of the sophomore mixtape D-2 making him the first Korean soloist to have two number-one hits on the Worldwide iTunes Album Chart and first Korean soloist to chart number one on both Worldwide iTunes & Apple Music Albums Chart simultaneously. The video for the lead single “Daechwita” also became the fastest music video by a Korean soloist to reach four million likes on YouTube in just 11 hours, making Agust D the only Korean soloist to have four music videos with over three million likes on YouTube. That’s a lot of numbers to process–especially for a free mixtape that dropped with little to no warning–so the usual question of ‘why?’ arose pretty quickly among new audiences.