I’ve been thinking about what to do for this week’s blog post. Then I remembered that Namjoon’s 24th birthday is coming up, so I decided to do a little info post about our favorite genius leader.

Kim Namjoon was born in Ilsan, South Korea on September 12, 1994. He has two parents and a younger sister. He struggled from the beginning, as he did have a heart issue that was thankfully fixed by surgery when he was a teenager. He got into music when he was in elementary school, already writing his own songs by the age of 10. When he was in middle and high school, although he knew he loved music, he still wasn’t sure what he wanted to do with his life. Because of this, his parents told him to focus on his schooling so that he would have more options for his future. There is even an account of his mother destroying a microphone of his so that he would focus on his homework instead of his music. Focusing on his school ended up working in his favor, as his test scores placed him in the top 1% academically in South Korea, and he has even confirmed that he has an IQ of 148, although he gets very embarrassed and flustered when asked about it. By the age of 13, he knew that what he wanted to do was music, so he began to record and releases his songs online, even performing in an underground rap group under the name of Runch Randa. When he was 15, another Korean rapper by the name of Sleepy saw one of his underground performances and introduced him to Bang Sihyuk, the CEO of BigHit Entertainment. After hearing Namjoon’s rapping for himself, he immediately asked Namjoon to sign a contract to train at BigHit. To this day, Bang Sihyuk says that Namjoon’s rap skills were what made him want to create what is now BTS. To convince his parents to let him join the company, Namjoon sat down with his mother and told his mother that he could focus on his academics and be in the top thousand people in Korea, or he could pursue rap and become the number one rapper in Korea. Obviously, she wanted a son who was number one, so she allowed him to move out and begin training at BigHit. Of the original lineup to be in BTS, Namjoon is the only member remaining, hence why he is the leader of the group. During a rap training session, Namjoon referred to himself as the ‘rap monster’, which then became his stage name when BTS debuted. However, in September 2017, he officially changed his stage name to RM, which stands for Real Me, but he has said that people can interpret the name as whatever they want.

Just some fun facts about Namjoon:

He is completely fluent in English. He taught himself by watching the entire Friends series multiple times.

He is extremely clumsy and is often called ‘God of Destruction’. He once told a story that he opened a stall to use the bathroom and the door fell off. He has also hurt himself many times, ranging from spraining his fingers, and Jin’s, after hitting his hand against Jin’s during a dance practice to stubbing his toe in his hotel room and lifting the toenail enough that he was unable to perform at his concert that night.

He hates seafood.

He can’t cook. At all. He doesn’t even know how to chop onions properly. Watch this video if you don’t believe me.

He is literally one of the most compassionate, caring, and beautiful people in the world, which is what makes him such a great leader.