For the past few months, I have started listening to new music. This particular type of music has really grown in the North American market. It has been something that my kids and I can agree on and within this fandom, we have been able to bond.
So what is this fandom?? And what is the genre of music??
Drum roll please………..
It’s K-Pop!!! Also known as Korean Pop.
More specifically, my kids and I have bonded over our mutual love for the group BTS!!! They’re a South Korean boy group consisting of Jin, Suga, J-Hope, RM, Jimin, V, and Jung Kook.
Yes… I can say I’m A.R.M.Y! Stands for Adorable Representative MC for Youth. And so are my kids! We’re an A.R.M.Y house… Although Rios isn’t A.R.M.Y… He does like their music…. But I secretly think he’s a closet A.R.M.Y. Hahaha
So how did this happen?? Well… One day… We were watching YouTube and came across a channel called Bad Lip Reading. This guy creates funny lip readings based on movies, or TV shows, or even music videos like the one we saw. Rios clicked on it first. He goes… Hey…let’s watch this… The guy did a bad lip reading of BTS…. Here is the link for the Bad Lip Reading….
We watched the video and said… Oh goodness…. We have to watch the original video…. Low and behold, we watched the video and we were hooked!!
The song that hooked us was BTS’s Idol. Here is the link for the original song.
We started watching their videos from the time they debuted which was in 2013, until now. They have a large plethora of music in their repitoire. They used to be very hip hop based, but have softened their look and their music. With a whole mix of different music in between.
Rios spent 9 years keeping the boys away from hip hop and rap. It’s not something that is on his playlist at all. He has quite an extensive playlist from Christian music, to hard rock, to screamo bands, to girl k-pop groups. One thing he never had on his list was rap and hip hop. But BTS’s original music mostly consisted of rap and hip hop. Philip started listening to BTS and said to me and Rios “I think I like rap music.” Rios was shocked 😲 I heard him go “Nooooooooooo!” Hahaha He said to me after… I was prepared to hear “I hate you dad” when the kids get older, but I was not prepared for I like rap music. Haha He is still quite devastated about it. He says it’s like a dagger through his heart. I, on the other hand, like some rap and hip hop… Mostly 90’s stuff…. The stuff today is terrible!
Anyway….I have a few favourite BTS songs that I listen to regularly. A few of my favourites are Best Of Me, Butterfly, Spring Day, Go Go, Mic Drop, and the list goes on… Go ahead… I dare you to look up those songs on YouTube.
Philip has even picked up a lot of the choreography from their videos. I might get in trouble for sharing this video… But I’ll gladly take the hit.
This was when he first started learning their choreography…. He’s much much better now. And look… Rios is with him because they bonded over the choreography. For those who know Rios…. You know he never dances… But he wanted to do something with Philip to spark the interest in him…. And for that I love him even more. 😍 Now Philip has a love for dancing and will be having his first recital in May!
The second video is Aaron dancing along to BTS’s song Dope. Since this video… Aaron has added many songs to his list of songs to dance to.
So why BTS??
Honestly…. It just started with the one video and our fandom grew from there. I like the fact that they’re hip hop and rap is clean. They have a good message that is much better than the messages you’ll get from North American music. Even if we can’t fully understand what they’re saying… Music transcends everything.
My mom was even saying to Philip… “you should write to them and say that you want to dance with them when they come back to Canada, or I’ll pay for your ticket to go there.” ooooooh…. Mom can I go with him too? Clearly Philip is going to need a chaperone. They were in Canada just before we became fans…. We didn’t even know they had 3 concerts here. Way to miss the bandwagon….All I know is that when they come back, we’re going to the concert!!
I told Philip to practice and maybe that could be a dream of his come true, one day. Philip started taking hip hop classes and guess what song he’s going to be dancing to…. BTS’s Fake Love…. Which is the music in the above video. Philip learned all the original choreography. He taught himself, and his teacher had said he is really good. He has a natural talent for dancing…. If I was to compare him to one of the BTS members, I’d say he is most like Jung Kook because he is good at everything. They call Jung Kook the golden maknae (youngest). JK is good at a lot of things: Taekwondo, singing, dancing, cooking, drawing…. The list goes on.
Philip, in comparison, is talented at a lot of things: Judo, dancing, drawing, cooking. He hasn’t really tried singing, but we have musicians on both sides of the family, so I’m sure he could pick it up and be good at that too. For a kid his age… I’m proud of what he has accomplished in such a short time.
Philip’s favourite band member is RM. Isaac’s favourite is Jung Kook. Aaron’s favourite is Jimin. My favourite is also Jimin, but Jung Kook is a strong second. Rios’ favourite is J-Hope….even though he says he’s not A.R.M.Y. Hahaha 😂 I’m not buying it…. 😉 This whole thing has also opened up some food doors for us. Yes, you read that right… Before this Aaron would not try any new food… He was pretty picky… He still is, but if I say “Jimin eats this” he’s more likely to try it than he was before. He tried bok choy and marinated beef because of it. #parentingwin
Philip has also gotten his other brothers to love BTS too!
Here’s a picture of Philip and Isaac holding up a sign that they wanted me to tweet to BTS.
I had to download twitter onto my phone because of them.
Now… To the TOB part…
BTS’s latest series is Love Yourself…. While it is a good message… It is also an incomplete one.
Loving yourself involves self care and making sure you are who you are and that you love yourself as you are. But as Catholics, you know we are called to love as Christ loves… To sacrifice yourself for the good of others. It’s saying… You can’t give what you don’t have…. But the emphasis is on giving. You must take care of yourself but you must also care for others. That is the message that us Catholics must remember. We have to remind ourselves that we are living in this world, but we are not of this world. We belong to God in heaven.
Along these lines… Make sure to ask each other how you are…. Sincerely find out how your friends are. Find out what’s going on in their lives. Be there and support your friends. Spend time getting to one another. Life is a journey, so have fun finding out God’s plan for your life and find some music that will help you along the way.
For us at the Manrique-Reyes household, part of the music that bonds us is BTS.
Keep putting out music boys, and we’ll keep listening to it!
Comment below what your favourite BTS song is…
Thanks for taking the time to read this blog post!
Your sister in Christ,
Jeanette
TOBCatholicMom 