On Art, Age, and Indigo

by McKayla Roberts

If there is one person that can bring me back from an indefinite hiatus of writing album reviews, it would be Kim Namjoon.

On December 2nd, 2022, BTS leader Kim Namjoon released his first solo album under his moniker RM, titled Indigo. The title calls back to his 2018 mixtape, mono, suggesting personal growth in the form of taking on color. Indigo is a natural color of the earth, but also a metaphor for the way RM sees himself now: a rich blue color mixing with the black and white of his past.

The album houses ten tracks, ten shades of blue to reflect the varying emotions of his twenties. It is a diary of his past four years, released a month before he turns thirty years old. He asked that the album be listened to chronologically to understand the story he is unfolding. But RM also hopes that this can be an album that outlasts craze or fad. He hopes at least one song might resonate with his listeners, become a soundtrack on the playlist of a moment in someone’s life. He hopes that his words can carry a level of permanence in the human experience, in the journey of someone’s twenties, in falling in love, in being angry, in questioning the meaning of truth. RM curated this album in the hopes of exploring his own emotions, but the product that he has created is so much more than that. It is an exhibition of human ideas - truth, beauty, love. And it has been offered to us by the artist, who takes our hand and leads us through, explaining his feelings along the way.

RM has always had a talent for writing incredible lyrics. Lyrics that reach across multiple seas and tie together language and metaphors to create phrases that dip into your soul and fill you with comfort and understanding. RM writes the way that I could only dream to write. Indigo is no exception, teeming with RM’s lyrical craft. But what also flows through his album is his love for art, something that he has grown more vocal about in the past years. He has mentioned before that he would love to own an art museum with a little coffee shop inside. But as far as I am concerned, this is his museum. This album is a curation of his art. His collaborations are the conversations between friends in the coffee shop and his lyrics are the quiet work that we do in solitude at the corner table of the shop, tucked away but warm and cozy.

One time I read that mono, RM’s 2018 mixtape, felt like you were crying, sitting on the floor of a dark room and then Namjoon came in. Rather than turn on the lights, he sat down next to you. You two cried together and held one another up, understanding each other through the sadness. Indigo feels like the two of you have grown up together. Now you walk together in a museum, quiet and serene. The space isn’t crowded and warm light filters in through the window. The presence next to you is familiar but not overbearing. You have time to contemplate each work and look for hidden messages and extract your own meanings. You see anger, you see hope, you see sadness. And it makes you feel human. It makes you feel like you understand something, like you have a connection to the artist, to the environment, to the world.

I think it is this nature of RM’s work that makes me feel so deeply connected. In addition to that, I have gotten to watch him grow up into the person he is today, just as he has been alongside my journey of growth, albeit unaware. It is a unique position that you get to be in as a fan, to see a glimpse of a person’s life through something as private as lyrics and music and art. The two of you are tethered together by shared emotions and understandings and you get the chance to learn from one another. I think this is one of the reasons that it feels so rewarding to be a fan: to be alongside someone on their journey in life, but only under the guise of art and inspiration.

RM has had many role models as he was starting out his career. Rap legends like Eminem, Nas, J-Cole, Jay-Z, all played a part in his origin story. He mirrored their cadence, their style, their lyricism, until he was able to create a spot in life for himself. As I get deeper into my twenties, this is something I am inspired by. Not just the clear success that RM was able to create for himself, but the struggle along the way and the ability to look to others for support in order to create some version of yourself that you can be just as proud of. I still think that moment is yet to come for me. But, I believe it will happen. And for now, I am just so excited to watch someone that I care about, who shares the same passion for words and language that I do, be a model for enjoying life and creating success. For figuring out your emotions and embracing the good and the bad.

When I first listened to this album, I felt angry. Because I knew that I would never be able to express myself in a way that RM is able to do here. I felt like even if I expressed how much this album meant to me no one would listen, no one would care, and no one would take me seriously. I thought, people won’t listen to me the same way people won’t listen to him. I didn’t realize until recently that this was because my art, my passion, is one that relies on words. And I wasn’t sure I had the right words to explain. But this album has also shown me the reason why I should try. Perhaps what RM is getting at here is that’s what it feels like to be in your 20s. To be silently screaming into a void, to have a million voices floating around in your head. To be angry and sad and heartbroken and hopelessly in love. To find your voice, to flourish in your hobbies. To accept that you are a mix of so many things, not just one thing. To want so badly to figure yourself out. When I became a BTS fan in 2017, me and other fans were always so focused on screaming. I think even now, we try so hard to be loud and vocal, because that's how we protected ourselves and the people that we cared about. But we don’t need to scream anymore. From this album, I feel like RM is telling us to settle down. To embrace the calm and to take control over your own emotions. Pour it into your art, into your every being. That is how to find the truth. That is how to be human.

It is safe to say, I think this album is very good. It is likely my favorite of all time. To me, it sits easily and comfortably within the canon of the best albums of all time. I hope that you give it a listen, just to see what you find.