You might all think that the first beat Suga made for another artist was his song 'Wine' for Suran.
You'd be wrong.
Before debut, before joining the trainee path to becoming an idol, before signing with BigHit, Suga was already making music.
He didn't do it under either of his current stage names, Suga or Agust D.
He did it under his real name, Min Yoongi and his stage name back then, Gloss (a direct translation into English of his real name: Yoongi).
And if you really dig for it, or if you just generally know the Korean hip hop underground scene pretty well, you'll see the song Min Yoongi produced a long time ago, and gifted to a rapper named Reflow.
The track is called: "Who Am I" made by Min Yoongi for rapper Reflow.
This is the teaser for a remixed version.
The original is not to be found on YouTube, but it's on Reflow's mixtape. Track number 2.
Already, you might be able to hear some similar sounds in the track to his more recent composition for Suran.
Let's rewind time.
Let me tell you a bit about how this track came to be, and about the rappers who rap over Min Yoongi's beat.
This was back when Suga lived in Daegu. A young boy of 17 who had high dreams and hopes of making it as a producer and rapper.
Having begun to get serious with music in sixth grade, at an age of twelve, Yoongi was beginning to make a name for himself in the indie scene in the big town of Daegu.
Enough so that when the underground rapper Reflow was in search of a beat and song that truly screamed his name, he went to:
"the beat-maker Yoongi from D-town"
and asked to be given a beat for his mixtape.
A month later Yoongi completed his beat and sent it to Reflow.
On his cyworld (social media of the time) Reflow wrote the backstory of every track on his mixtape REPRESENT.
(You have to log in to see the posts, or try on your computer)
In a post dated to the 1st of October 2011 he describes the entire scene and the feeling of receiving a track from Yoongi:
"[Who Am I] This is the song I'm the most attached to on my mixtape."
"It's been a little over a year since I made this song. It was during summer last year, so it was before I joined the ADV crew."
"I always wrote lyrics and performed on top of instrumental songs. I felt like I really needed a song to call 'my song'. And it needed to be something intense."
"So I talked to D-Town's beat-maker Yoongi from Daegu's NT's crew. I asked him to make a beat for me. And then, about a month later, I received the beat."
"It was exactly the beat I had wanted, so I was thrilled.
So I went straight to work on it."
Reflow then stops his tale of excitement over the beat to tell us what has happened to Yoongi since then (a year later).
"If I can stop the story for a while, to tell you that D-town's Yoongi is now being recognised. I've heard that he is working under Bang Shihyuk these days. Have you heard of BTS? Jackpot!"
For any newcomers: BTS were given their group name all the way back in the early days of 2011 and were for a long time rumoured and talked about underground before debut in 2013.
For his mixtape, Reflow even remixed the track and rapped on it with the famous rapper Basick, whom you may recognize if you've watched Show Me the Money.
Basick won the forth season of 'Show Me The Money'. A competition show for rappers.
Now it's time for us to have a little look at who the rapper Reflow is, and what Yoongi's beat did for him.
Reflow continues to write:
"When JJK came to Daegu and watched me perform, the song I performed was 'Who Am I'. The song talked about during the meeting about whether I could join the crew or not was also 'Who Am I'."
"It's a song I'll never be able to forget for as long as I live."
In another post he reveals that after becoming a part of JJK's crew, all of his mixtape songs were rejected apart from 'Who Am I'.
JJK was part of the crew ADV, which Reflow joined soon after his mixtape dropped. But why is this crew so important?
ADV is a famous underground crew. In more recent times through audition programs like 'K-pop Star' and 'Show Me The Money' a few members of the crew have broken into the mainstream and begun to shine again.
Such members include 올티(Olltii) and 서출구(Seo Chul Gu). Here they are performing a song given to them by Zion.T during 'Show Me The Money'.
The other members (more famous in the underground scene) are: JJK, JoyRain, 권썩(Kwon Sseok), 팔드로(Paldro), Raretongue,BeFamous, 갱자(Kaengja), 달재(Dalje), ORGN/MRDN, Natas, Ceedo, and Drev.
So what's the big deal?
These are all rappers who are acknowledged in the underground scene, and all of them acknowledged Yoongi's beat, by accepting Reflow into their midst because of that song.
'Show Me The Money 4' winner, rapper Basick, also acknowledged Yoongi by rapping on a remixed version of his beat.
As for Yoongi, Bang Shihyuk has stated in the past that during the talks about Yoongi possibly signing with BigHit, Suga talked very confidently about his beats and was very proud of his involvement with ADV. it is indeed something to be proud of.
And all of this was before Yoongi joined BigHit and became known as Suga.
Born singer.
Born rapper.
Born producer.
This was the Kpop history lesson about the beat-maker Yoongi from D-Town.
*MIC DROP*
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