Min Yoongi's been planning this for three years.
In tandem with the release of his newest album, D-Day, Min Yoongi (aka Suga of BTS and Agust D, his solo moniker) has released a documentary exploring the years spent building up to his confirmed final album in Agust D's universe. While Agust D officially began as a persona in 2016 to differentiate Suga's solo work from his work with BTS, in Suga: Road to D-Day we see those lines blurring into almost complete oblivion. Somewhere in the midst of all that is 30-year-old Min Yoongi, now a decade older than when he first began his career with BTS, on the precipice of his next big thing.
Road to D-Day strings its pieces together to thread a larger story of a young artist trying to find purpose. The documentary immediately opens up with Suga asking himself what story he wants to tell next, why he's still making music, and what his dreams are. So, what does a seasoned artist do when they've reached a creative block? Well, they travel across the world and make music in unfamiliar places with unfamiliar faces to try to find that creative flame again. In Road to D-Day, we watch Suga participate in songwriting sessions with several musicians, including Anderson .Paak and the late Ryuichi Sakamoto. We dive into his studio for 2 a.m. musings and follow him as he looks inward — laying bare his thoughts, opinions, and feelings on music and his place within it all after a decade of climbing success.
And there's a fair question to ask here: What do you do after all your dreams come true? BTS' success has been explosive to say the least. Since the group's debut in 2013, the septet has sold out stadiums across the world, achieved numerous record-breaking accolades, been nominated for five Grammys, and imprinted K-pop as a permanent force in the global music scene. When you're sitting atop the highest peak of a mountain, where do you even look to keep going?
The documentary is as much a behind-the-scenes look into the artist's music process, and finding D-Day's sonic story, as it is an exploration of adulthood and success. In Road to D-Day, he confesses that he believes one becomes an adult when they stop dreaming — a fear he's voiced since BTS' debut song, "No More Dream," asked its listeners, "What is your dream?" all the way back in 2013 and emboldened an isolated youth to fiercely keep dreaming in the face of crushing adulthood.
To dream has always been BTS' motto and an act of resistance by the group. For one of its members to explicitly confess he might not have any dreams left, well, you can imagine the emotional weight of that. But dreaming isn't built on one stagnant goal, and that's what Suga realizes by the end of Road to D-Day.
In one's 20s, dreaming often involves the pursuit of success. The members of BTS in particular have spent their 20s in a quest to achieve specific kinds of dreams, like entering the U.S. music market and serendipitously topping its charts. Then comes 30, an age when, if you're someone like Suga, already sitting on a throne of achievements, can feel like an end — until you realize that dreams can evolve.
By the documentary's conclusion, Suga laments over the pressure we put on ourselves due to time and age. In his eyes, focusing too much on finding meaning in the past, present, and future is only a recipe for torment. Rather than fixating on things that aren't in our control, Suga offers an alternative: Accept the tide of life as it comes. Don't anticipate where it's going. Instead, float on it while you still can and enjoy the view. It's a way of thinking that's a rarity in an entertainment industry that constantly pushes artists toward burnout.
As we watch Suga travel across the world, he gradually realizes with each adventure that the real beauty in living and making music is being present with the people around him, taking in every environment (whether it's the Grand Canyon or Steve Aoki's studio), and letting himself enjoy the smaller things. Maybe within all the big, Billboard–charting dreams are the smaller, even more important dreams. Maybe it's enough to only dream of drinking and eating with people you love. Maybe the real resistance of dreaming is to dream of something softer, to be gentle in a world that'll try its best to undo you, and to allow yourself to still love what you do, regardless of the outcome.
While you might think it's impossible to relate to a Korean pop star, Road to D-Day proves otherwise. In Suga's journey, we not only meet the artist, but, more importantly, we see the person behind the music taking over the world. That person is just as lost as you are, and trying to find his reason for being as time goes by. That person just wants to do what he loves. And it's an absolute delight to meet him.
Suga: Road to D-Day is now streaming on Disney+.(opens in a new tab)
