STAN KIM NAMJOON Tell me your story. I want to hear your voice, and I want to hear your conviction. No matter who you are, where you’re from, your skin colour, gender identity: speak yourself. ”
–RM, 2018.09.24, United Nations speech.
Kim Nam-joon (김남준), better known by his stage name RM (short for Real Me) (formerly known as Rap Monster (랩몬스터) and Runch Randa), is a South Korean rapper-songwriter, composer and producer. He is the leader and a rapper of BTS, also he is notable for his large input in songwriting and production in the discography in the group.
As a solo artist, he has released two mixtapes: RM in 2015 and Mono in 2018.
Kim Nam-joon was born on September 12, 1994, in Dongjak-gu, South Korea, and grew up in Ilsan-gu, where his family moved when he was four or five. He is the elder of two siblings and has a younger sister.
As a child, RM largely learned English by watching Friends with his mother.[7] As a student, he actively wrote poetry and often received awards for his writings. He posted his work to an online poetry website for roughly one year, where he received moderate attention. Through this, RM grew interested in pursuing a literary career but decided against it. At the age of 11, RM became interested in hip-hop music after hearing Epik High's "Fly" in fifth grade. He found that the song had provided him comfort, and, due to this, decided to look further into the genre. Following an introduction to American rapper Eminem by his schoolteacher, RM grew interested in lyricism, printing lyrics he felt were "cool" and sharing them with his friends. RM transitioned to writing lyrics then, stating that his poetry became lyrics when it combined with music. In 2007, as a first-year middle school student, RM began rapping in local amateur hip-hop circles, creating his first self-composed recording for the first time using the program Adobe Audition (then called Cool Edit). He later participated in his first concert in 2008. RM eventually became more active in the underground Korean hip-hop scene under the moniker "Runch Randa", releasing a number of tracks and collaborations with other underground rappers, such as Zico.
In school, RM scored in the top 1% of the nation in the university entrance examinations for language, math, foreign language and social studies and had an IQ of 148.RM's parents were strongly opposed to his interest in a musical career due to his academic achievements, and initially, RM decided to set music aside to focus on his studies. In order to convince his mother to allow him to be a rapper, he asked her if "she wanted to have a son who was a first-place rapper, or a 5,000th-place student".