Jung Kook has never minded being the youngest. He’s been called the Golden Maknae (황금막내/hwang-geummagnae) for almost half his life now. In a 2023 interview with Apple Music, Zane Lowe asks him if making and releasing his first solo album finally let him shed the feeling of being “the youngest”. To which JK replies: Even in 20 or 30 years, I will always be the youngest, the “maknae”. That will never change. It’s not said with any exasperation or regret. In fact, he just sounds fond. Fond and a little pleased. He smiles as he says, And I don’t really dislike being called ‘maknae’, before admitting that there is a certain privilege he knows was afforded him by virtue of being the youngest. Jung Kook has also credited his six BTS hyungs with being the reason he’s gotten as far as he has today, claiming that he learned and took something different from each one of them—things that shaped him into the man he is today. I just follow my own compass. This quote, from Jung Kook in his 2024 documentary “I Am Still”, sums up how he usually makes decisions for himself. He listens, feels, and trusts his gut. And those instincts were honed over many years of working together as part of a team and knowing how to play to everyone’s strengths. He approached developing a theme for Golden and finding material to fit it in typical JK fashion. Despite the fact that he wasn’t involved in the songwriting process, Jung Kook wasn’t careless with the songs he selected. He listened closely, and when he felt that pull from his inner compass—he followed it.

After Jin enlisted in December 2022, without a set schedule to guide him, JK found himself adrift—without BTS and without purpose. He knew he would need to work on the solo album he wanted to release before his own military enlistment, but first he took a well-deserved break, getting to spend some quality time in his first solo home with his doberman, Bam, who he’d adopted in 2021. After a few months, once we saw the release of both Jimin and SUGA’s solo albums, and j-hope enlisted, ARMY began to wonder… was Jung Kook working on a solo album, or had his plans changed since that FESTA dinner the previous summer? Luckily, it wouldn’t be too much longer before we got our answer. In July, he dropped his official debut solo single, “Seven (feat. Latto) and began his months-long takeover of the global pop charts. It was a cultural moment all on its own, but also served as an appetizer to the upcoming main course. This week we’ll begin our exploration of Jung Kook’s Golden, a solo debut that was both years in the making and the result of several last-minute “trusting your gut” decisions. We’ll see how JK’s constant desire to prove and challenge himself led to him exploding onto the western pop scene with an album completely sung in English, and a brand-new attitude and look to go along with it.

When a caterpillar is finished growing, and has shed its last skin, it forms a chrysalis—a hard, protective outer layer—around itself in preparation for its transformation into a butterfly. In a metaphorical, or psychological sense, the “chrysalis stage” is when we realize our life is shifting… we’re growing, and maybe the old way of doing things isn’t working for us anymore. When BTS debuted, Jung Kook was 15. As the first few years of their career passed, he shed his skin over and over again, just like a caterpillar. And though Jung Kook had come of age at 19, when he hit his 20th birthday in 2017, he finally became a fully-fledged adult in South Korea. Over the next few years, Jung Kook would emerge more and more from his very own chrysalis. There were obvious physical changes—JK seemed intent upon experimenting and expressing himself through his appearance, in an almost devil-may-care manner. It felt like rebellion, but the most polite kind possible. Aside from his appearance, Jung Kook was growing inside as well. Though he claims to not be very introspective, JK can be very sentimental. When his pen hit paper, it was most often the fans he wrote about, like 2020’s “Still With You”, but sometimes he would reflect on his journey, who he was becoming, and who he had left behind. The baby of BTS wasn’t a baby any longer…

Jeon Jung Kook was born September 1, 1997 in Busan, South Korea where he lived with his parents and elder brother. During elementary and early middle school, Jung Kook began discovering he had natural talent in… well, pretty much anything he tried doing. He wasn’t particularly interested in music as a kid, but realized that he could, without any formal training, actually sing and dance fairly well. So in 2011, when he learned they would be holding auditions in Daegu, Jung Kook decided to try out for the talent show Superstar K. Though he wasn’t selected to be on the show, he did immediately receive casting offers from seven (how auspicious) different companies, including one of the “Big Three”—JYP Entertainment. However, Jung Kook saw RM (Rap Monster at the time) perform and that was it for him. He thought the older rapper was “so cool” and immediately decided he needed to join Big Hit so he could train with him. And so, BTS got their maknae (youngest) and their main vocalist all in one fell swoop. Years later, Jung Kook would admit that the responsibility placed on him at that age terrified him. He threw himself into training even more. Eventually, his hero RM gave him the nickname “Golden Maknae" because he was so good at everything. They didn’t know it at the time but this affectionate nickname would not only stick around for years, but also eventually define the standard Jung Kook would set for his entire career.