Big Hit releases apology over a producer using the Jim Jones sample in SUGA's song

[juhli.livejournal.com]

Follow-up to yesterdays post



Hello, this is Big Hit Entertainment. This is our official statement on the issue of BTS’ Suga’s mixtape.

The vocal sample of the speech in the introduction of the song “What Do You Think?” on the mixtape was selected without any special intent by the producer who worked on the track, who was unaware of the identity of the speaker and used the sample for the overall atmosphere of the song.

After the speech sample was selected, the company followed our internal process and carried out procedures for reviewing the appropriateness of the content. However, in both the selection and review processes, we committed an error in not recognizing the inappropriateness of the content and including the sample in the song.

Big Hit Entertainment has processes for reviewing its diverse content targeted toward a global audience for potential social, cultural, and historical issues. However, we are experiencing the reality that there are limits to understanding and correctly responding to every situation. In this case, we were not able to recognize the issue in advance and displayed a lack of understanding about the relevant historical and social issues. We apologize to those who felt uncomfortable or hurt because of this.

Big Hit Entertainment has removed the part of the song in question and re-released the new version.
The artist also feels embarrassed and deeply responsible for a problem that has arisen in an area that he did not consider.
Big Hit Entertainment will use this incident as a lesson to conduct its production process more thoroughly.

source: @soompi, soompi, naver

Comments

[in-noctem.livejournal.com]

I was wondering why a friend of mine was posting a screenshot of the song on ig at a time like this. So I guess they think this ‘apology’ sufficed. It felt like 5 paragraphs of nothing.

[dongsaengkiller.livejournal.com]

It was so fucking dumb of him to include something in a language he doesn’t understand for aesthetics! In the good year of our lord 2020 when the meaning and context behind things is just one google search away???? How sway? So dumb. Especially for an idol who knows that everything he does will be torn apart searching for meaning. He messed up.
Good on them to address it but it’s ridiculous that this even happened

[benihime99.livejournal.com]

So much for the deep history with south korea...

[broadcities.livejournal.com]

i've seen army's saying the past few days that he consciously used the sample in the song and here's bighit saying that he used it without knowing the context and basically used it to be edgy. i hope both delusional fans and yoongi and bighit learn from this. good that yoongi apparently feels responsible, but i also hope he shows this by not hiding behind bighit's statement but also addresses this personally.

[ah0000.livejournal.com]

what’s very interesting about these views is that they are so WESTERN too

[lulufairybubble.livejournal.com]

All the stans saying he included the speech bc he was standing against people like Jim Jones lol. We knew that was bullshit. But turns out he wasn't even the one who did it lol. It doesn't absolve him of anything though but the stans still will take it that way. Which actually goes against the narrative that BTS is in charge of all their music from start to finish. But we dont have to talk about that today.

[rosiemotleymind.livejournal.com]

Seriously what is it? Are BTS in complete control over their sound (unrealistic because the stuff still has to get vetted by producers and management)? Or the producers are the ones who make them mess up? Like...I’m struggling.

[rosiemotleymind.livejournal.com]

They should be embarrassed tbh. I unfollowed many people dogpiling on black armys who were upset about this. Like the absolute audacity that some fans have is crazy to me. Especially arguing with black American fans who are struggling with a million other things at this time. He needs to do better. Don’t act like you’re so involved in your mixtape that you can’t do a simple google search before using a sample.

[mjmjchick.livejournal.com]

....is he not the producer?

Whatever. I’m just going to ctrl+c/v what I posted in the other post earlier this evening:

I’ve had issues with him ever since he lauded Eminem with praise for coming out “on top” of a music genre dominated by black people. That comment has left me salty ever since.

This edgelord shit involving the use of audio from a JJ speech is not the business, and fuck anybody who is using what’s going on at home to distract from the matter at hand. It’s already bad enough being here in SK and seeing the very people who flipped their shit over the COVID19-related xenophobia (even comparing it to racism 🙄🙄🙄) not say a motherfucking WORD about what’s going down across the pond—hell, some expat groups are trying to shut down discussion because it’s “not Korea-related”....as if there aren’t Black American expats here that are feeling isolated—but now I have to hear about this? NEW: about ARMYs who care more about the optics of their idol than actually helping to educate?

Miss me with this insecurity-rooted posturing. It’s tired. Miss me with this “apology.” And fuck anybody who is actively attempting to invalidate black people’s feelings.

[hoursnow.livejournal.com]

do you have a source for that eminem comment?

[kyulkyung.livejournal.com]

are the members ever actually going to own up to their mistakes or do they plan hiding behind bighit for the rest of their career? armys love to claim the group has apologized and “grown“ but i have yet to hear any actual, genuine apologies from any of the members. i'm also skeptical about this alleged “growth“ seeing how they can't go a month without showing their asses. at this point, what DOES set them apart from other groups ist how unapologetically messy they are and nothing else.

[rosiemotleymind.livejournal.com]

Someone on AJ pointed out that the only time BTS has apologized personally for anything was JK’s dating scandal and Jimin’s death threat apparently

[aures.livejournal.com]

is he hiding behind the company or...? because i don't see him apologizing personally, makes me wonder how sorry he is, if at all?

[japataz.livejournal.com]

There is a clip of him working on that exact sample and there are tweets from 2019 where fans talked about him sampling JJ so miss me with him not knowing. Interesting that some sources also credited him as producer on this song 🤔

At best he’s just another kpop singer who sings what he’s given
At worst he’s the kind of person that “does not consider” what’s problematic about exploiting murder for profit

[thekellieee.livejournal.com]

of course it's someone else's fault of course it is

[jyusou.livejournal.com]

Well well well look who turned out to be a bitch.

And once again, they hide behind a company-issued apology, written to remove the artist from the product as much as possible. Laughable, considering it is his own fucking mixtape, which implies his full creative control. Back when I was a more enthusiastic fan this would have relieved me and I would’ve made excuses to move on. But now it just makes me jaded as hell. Grow up, Yoongi. You’re too old for this.

[uledy.livejournal.com]

Suddenly, this boy has never produced a song in his life 🥴

[peachdrug.livejournal.com]

lmao this, suddenly the one who used to be known as The Genius Producer Who Does A Lot of Research is no longer that. miss me with this

[tiffturn01.livejournal.com]

Suga needs to address this himself. I knew the company would, but it is his mixtape and so he needs to explain and apologize on his own behalf.

[negativesunset.livejournal.com]

fans are an absolute mess with this, like bighit already said they used it for no reason other than the atmosphere, but they're still going around claiming he's criticizing him with a song that's really just about the usual bragging in rap songs...?

also, it's fascinating watching the reactions to this cause it somehow seemed like fans always put him on a pedestal over the other members, so watching them scram around with excuses from 'he did it on purpose for good reason' to 'this is his art, how dare you misinterpret it' to 'it's not his fault' is a trip

[kanji00.livejournal.com]

the way most of them are either mad at big hit for apologizing or mad at other fans for blaming him when it "wasn't his fault".... stan culture is a mindfck

[camified.livejournal.com]

that's not an audio that could be "selected without special intent". i'm not saying yoongi grabbed it himself but someone down the line went out of their way to dig up jim jones' tapes in earnest and that's really sick to think about.

after this i just never want to hear abt bts' self-produced idol bullshit ever again lol

[dongsaengkiller.livejournal.com]

I want to apologize for the back and forth we had yesterday. I came from the perspective that he picked it intentionally because he had a national and global connection to it. To see that it was picked because it sounded good and he didn’t have a lick of sense to look further into what he was incorporating into his art is utterly mind blowing to me. Obviously I gave a grown man too much credit and moving forward, I’ll have to lower the bar into the ground because apparently you can’t expect idols to have artistic integrity for even their own mixtapes.
All that to say, I’m sorry for defending what turns out to have been indefensible.

[digitalqueen.livejournal.com]

my favorite excuse was jj being anti korean and the song was criticizing him. i even saw twitter armys saying it was a korean issue and black people shouldnt have a say in it

[klauses.livejournal.com]

black people shouldn't have a say in something about JIM JONES????? i'm raging, people go way too far to defend these kpop men

[blck-ink.livejournal.com]

nah this apology is some absolute bs. you mean to tell me that you supposedly have an entire process to prevent things like this but failed to look into this sample??? it had to be cleared right? so you had to find out where this audio came from. so please explain how even then you still didn't realize that a mass murderer's speech would maybe not be appropriate in this case?! now they made themselves look extra dumb cause they're trying to absolve suga of any responsibility while you have actual footage of him listening to his speech and army's rewriting history to make it make sense.

[infj23.livejournal.com]

YG not knowing about the context of the sample’s background is such bullshit.

These arguments of “censorship” and “artistic freedom” are bullshit, too.

YG and fans knew exactly what they were doing and now they’re embarrassed. The only difference is YG gets to hide behind someone and let them take the fall (as usual).

Happy Festa, y’all!

[chikage-chan.livejournal.com]

The mental gymnastics going on on Twitter to justify this... Screw these stans, when it's convenient he's a rap god, when it's not he is just a poor boy that has his ~art~ misunderstood.

I have a good offline friend that has been retweeting shit coddling him and I am torn between engaging and trying to teach her why Suga and BH are in the wrong here, or just block her for a while. People that claim to like him should be holding him accountable for his mistakes and push him to grow, not make up excuses for his mediocrity.

And of course BH would think this non-apology shifting the blame to a dude no one cares about would suffice. I'm through with this manufactured fake woke BS and them getting praise for doing nothing.

[suggestivepeach.livejournal.com]

Ugh I have a friend who absolutely refuses to hold him and other fans accountable. It’s infuriating. She’s just like, “ya it wasn’t a good look but that’s it. He didn’t have bad intentions n apologised. He didn’t do anything wrong.” Like???? He’s a grown ass man who made a mistake! Why is that so hard to accept.

And when I talked about how the fans bent over backwards to defend him she said they were all fake bandwagon stans who will leave once they get married. I was kind of in shock at the lengths she’d go to to shift blame away from fans entirely. Hundreds and thousands of ppl from the fandom spread misinformation to deflect blame and you are absolutely certain that they’re all “fake fans”????????

[hoursnow.livejournal.com]

I really wish BTS fans would stop bending over backwards to justify it and saying gross condescending things and if he's putting these tracks out under his name (esp in a solo mixtape) he should be checking everything that goes into it, regardless of whether or not he produced that song. I really think given the current climate he should make an apology personally or acknowledge it, though maybe he thinks this line in the company statement is a form of that. Also for the corona comment bc that was tone deaf as hell, he could've just said he had more time at home to finish recording or whatever.

Like, we're the same age.......I know he's capable of thinking about this stuff.

[minstradamus.livejournal.com]

I thought Big Hit was going to ignore the issue and I'm glad they didn't but I wish Big Hit let (?) their artists apologize themselves. I'm not sure if they're not allowed ot their company is against them speaking up but it doesn't look good.

Their statement makes it sound like he didn't produce the track. What are they doing?

[nudrive.livejournal.com]

so suddenly he isn't the producer? lmfaooooo

[jackieee94.livejournal.com]

I’m surprised Bighit actually came out with a statement. Putting the blame on the producer instead of Yoongi wow. I thought this was Yoongi’s self produce mixtape??!! They really need to let Yoongi apologize and acknowledge his errors. Putting the sermon for aesthetic purposes is fucked up. It should have never been cleared or thought of in the first place.

[torontok.livejournal.com]

Asianjunkie referred to this as "Schrodinger's Artistic Control"and that just sums it up.It's laughable that one minute he's Suga,Agust,D totally genius rapper and producer and then next second he's hiding behind his company because actually, it was some big bad producer who did this.

[chikage-chan.livejournal.com]

I’m adopting that expression for my life, thank you very much lolol

[peachdrug.livejournal.com]

Yoongi could go on vlive for an hour to talk about his mixtape but he suddenly doesn't have a voice nor a hand in the apology. You know you're in a weird place when say a member from an SM group would be more courageous to write a handwritten apology compared to someone that comes from a "self-produced" background.

People who say that he is ignorant and didn't know better shouldn't bother using such excuse because he's a seven year WORLDWIDE idol who has made connections internationally, and not some nugu khh spitting bad bars in the streets of Hongdae. He's proud of setting "traps" in his songs but he fell into his own. He's proud and feels reassured of having ARMYs behind his back. We've seen the clip of him working on this track, and for him to listen to the sermon again and again makes it so scary. When you have regular knetz able to relate the severity of someone as jim jones to their own history of cults, it's not ok.