BKTM - Interview

An interview with Sun.rei

By

Ethan Horton

With Army's and k-pop getting a bigger a lot more people are getting involved in meet-ups to discuss dance and finding people who relate to them. These k-pop meet-ups are growing in popularity of recent date with a huge part of this being because of groups such as BTS. I met with Sun.REI a Youtuber/k-pop cover singer and K-pop meet organiser in the Birmingham area to see what she thinks about the impact of BTS and the rise of K-pop.

Hi, thanks for speaking to me. Please introduce yourself to our readers.

My name is Sun.REI (pronounced as Sun Ray), I'm 19, and I run fan meets in the Birmingham area for K-pop fans alongside doing various song covers.

How and when did you first get into K-pop and BTS?

Getting into K-pop was a long time coming for me, as an anime fan I loved the music from the shows, exploring and listening to what YouTube suggested to me.

I saw many MMD dance videos of K-pop songs, without knowing they were Korean, the earliest song being T-ara’s Bo Beep Bo Beep. I attempted to learn the lyrics from the Romanised text and not being able to do it properly since I was only used to seeing Japanese Romanised text.

Boy In Love came in my suggested feed on its release and was my jam for a while, but I didn’t really explore BTS that much except from that one song until I met a fellow K-pop fan at college. We were talking about different groups we like, and she started talking about BTS' new song. Not knowing who they are I asked “What’s BTS?” And that was it. The next week was a crash course on names, ages, albums and weekly idol binge watching until the song came out. From then, we would watch all their comebacks together whilst we were in college.

When and how did you first get the idea to have flashmobs and dances in public?

I’ve always wanted to dance in public; it’s been on my bucket list for so long! Purely because I love to confuse people, in a good way!

E.g. when we did Not Today Flash mob, as soon as we started everybody in the street turned around with this look of “WHAT IS THIS? I WASN’T PREPARED” then we start dancing and they really enjoy it! I love making people smile, and also dancing. So when you combine it with the shock of a surprise you’re bound to see happy faces.

You've been doing Flash Mobs for a while now; how do you feel that public opinion has changed? Do people recognise the songs? How much do you think this is down to BTS’s success and the rise of k-pop popularity?

When we did Not Today, people didn’t really get what the song was though they did stay around to watch the performance. Now though? We can just be walking and playing Mic Drop and somebody will walk past us singing “Did you see my bag?” They’re a lot more used to none English music playing loudly in the streets, younger people cheer us on or sing with us.

I think BTS has played a large role in making modern day fans interested. I think with their rise to popularity they’ve given Korean music a large push into western media. They’re the gateway into K-pop, along with artists such as BoA, PSY and Girls Generation.

You are also known for your singing/rapping that you do on your channel. What kind of success has singing songs such as J-Hope one verse Bilingual cover had on your confidence and also your channel?

One Verse was one of my favourite covers, the first time I had written full rap freestyle on the translated lyrics. I was supposed to go to the Park but by the time I had edited and exported the audio it was 4pm! After publishing the song. I shared it out to the UK ARMY’s and got a lot of positive feedback.

I remember being at church when I realised how much support I was getting, people were sharing the video, telling me about what they thought. All of the feedback, positive & negative, made me realise my potential. Before I wasn’t very confident in my lyrical skill. I hated singing/ rapping/ dancing for others. That song really pulled me into gear in terms of performance; it was the first song that I thought about performing anywhere! Recently I performed a Bilingual Cover live, it was Bobby’s Holup! I don’t think I would’ve had the courage to do that, had One Verse and my other videos not been so well received.

What kind of satisfaction do you gain when meeting these people at BKTM's and how do you feel bands such as BTS have affected them such as you attracting people to join you at these types of events?

Well know the feeling you’re the only K-pop fan in a room, but in a room full of K-pop fans, no one is the odd one out! I just feel satisfied to know people are making friends at the gatherings.

Mainly, the openness and diversity of the forum is what I’m most proud of. We welcome any and everyone; all fandoms, ages, ethnicity, racial background, disabilities etc. To find that sense of unity with someone can be the difference between a great day and a breakdown.

People often say things like “My anxiety was acting up really badly so I didn’t want to come in, but after I did I started having so much fun and I made some new friends”. And that’s where my satisfaction comes from, to overcome life’s issue and stresses for a day of relaxation and enjoyment! I think the various bands and groups we listen to help the attendees to form bonds with one another and deep-rooted friendships. It helps people be more open about themselves.

As a YouTuber and while doing these events how do you hope that you will be able to grow and develop as well as gain people for your events?

My main goal for BKTM is and was to make friends. Not just for me but for others. As time has gone on, I’ve also added another mission to our BKTM list, to help people overcome “disabilities” like depression, anxiety etc. Like I said before, I really love to see people smiling, so when I run these events, I just want everyone to smile. Forgetting the bad times and traumas to just nerd out openly. Bottling up your fangirl problems is hard, I know because I’ve done it, so giving everyone a forum to fangirl/fanboy together is what I really want. Eventually, it may be being enough to become a convention? I think that would be awesome!

Finally if you could say one thing to someone wanting to start doing BTS dance covers or thinking of joining you at one of your events what would you say to these people?

For dance covers, I would say practice with a mirror and don’t be afraid to use space when you move. To use the full extent of your body, and when you pull out a camera (particularly if you’re not used to it) Embrace your inner Jimin and move! Own the stage you are making! And just have fun! And for future events I would say Just come! A lot of people message me saying things like “I want to go to your meet but I’m very shy” There’s nothing to be shy about! We welcome everyone, and we try to make everyone feel welcome. I’d say come and give our group a try, if it’s not for you that’s totally fine, but I’m confident that you’ll make some good friends here, and we all can’t wait to meet you!

I'd like to say thank you to Sun.REI for taking the time to have this interview with me.

If you would like to interact with Sun.REI on social media you can find her at the following:

Youtube: @Sun.REI

Facebook: sun.rei77

Instagram: @sun.rei77