Kim Taehyung aka V (POP Singer)

Name    Kim Taehyung Stage Name    V		Role    Singer
Born    December 30, 1995 (Age 24) ( 1995-12-30 ) Seo District, Daegu, South Korea Nationality    South Korean Height    5.87 feet (179 cm) Weight    58 kg Gender    Male Genres    R&B, neo soul, indie pop, K-pop Sun Sign    Capricorn Similar    BTS (band), Big Hit Entertainment, Rap Monster

Facts

Early & Personal Life

V was originally born as Kim Tae-Hyung on December 30, 1995, in Daegu, South Korea. He grew up in Geochang County. V completed his schooling from the Korean Art School in Seoul.

V aspired to be a professional singer when he was in elementary school. Accordingly, he also began taking saxophone lessons in early middle school so that he could take up music as a profession in the coming years. V received complete support from his parents in pursuing his dreams.

Family

V considers his father a role model. He once said that he wants to be a dad like his dad, to be specific he wants to be someone who takes care of his children, listens them say and encourages them, and guides them in their future plans.

Family Background

V comes from a family of farmers. In an interview, V once said, "I came from a poor family and I never thought I would become famous.” He often shares pictures of the farm his family owns on social media. In an interview with ‘The Star', V said, “Being an idol is a lucky chance that will only come once in a lifetime. If I weren’t in BTS I would probably be a farmer. I’d be pulling out weeds from a farm with my grandmother.”

Relationships

If reports are to be believed, Kim Taehyung has never been in any serious relationship. He has had several flings, for sure, BTS members confirmed in various interviews.

After completing his school, V enrolled himself in Global Cyber University. Thanks to his saxophone lessons, V cleared an audition in Daegu and bagged the position of a trainee at Big Hit Entertainment.

Reports were also rife that Kim Taehyung was recently dating actress Kim Yoo-Jung. The rumors caught fire after Kim Taehyung shared pictures of himself in a subway, On the same day, Kim Yoo-Jung too shared photos of her taking a subway. Both of them shared the pictures just a couple of hours apart, hence, fans started speculating that the two might not only be riding a subway together but also dating each other. While few fans liked to believe the rumors others just laughed it off.

Kim Taehyung's Stage Name, V

Kim Taehyung chose 'V' as his stage name. The lead vocalist of one of the world's most popular K-pop groups, however, never opens up about the story behind his unique stage name.

According to reports, he once said in an interview that Big Hit Entertainment, the music company he is associated with since the beginning of his career suggested three different options to pick up his stage name from. They were - Six, Lex and V. And, Taehyung decide to choose 'V' as it is a symbol of "victory".

“My stage name was chosen last. Six, Lex, V,” the singer said. “Those three names were suggested but the members and PD all said that V fit me the best and so I picked V to stand for victory,” he added.

Ever since Taehyung joined BTS, the K-pop group rapidly climbed high on the ladder of success, thereby bringing victory to the whole group. To name a few, the boy band had performed at Grammy Awards and collaborated with bigwig artists like Sia and Halsey.

Color Blindness

Since years, rumors have been doing rounds about Kim Taehyung's color blindness. Many reports on the internet claim that Taehyung suffers from monochromatic color blindness, which means his eyes can only register colors in the shade of grey. To simplify the point, rumors have it that Taehyung looks at the world through an old black and white television screen.

However, no reports could mention the exact information about since when Taehyung allegedly turned colorblind. Reports could not trace if Taehyung was born colorblind or he acquired color blindness during his teenage. Neither did Taehyung ever admitted to any such problem. Hence, Taehyung's colorblindness was only limited to fan fiction as neither he himself ever confessed about the same nor his closed ones or band members ever did.

Career

Kim Taechyung was the last member of the BTS to be introduced to the world. Before this, people believed the BTS consists of only six members, then, Taechyung joined as the seventh member with the stage name "V" and took the BTS fans by storm. He made his debut on Mnet's M Countdown on June 13, 2013. He performed his track "No More Dream" from BTS's debut single album, "2 Cool 4 Skool" on the show.

Taechyung, however, scored his first credentials for music composition in the album "The Most Beautiful Moment in Life, Part 1". He had written and co-produced the song "Hold Me Tight". Ever since V has lent his melodies and written lyrics for a number of popular tracks. He wrote the lyrics for songs like "Fun Boyz", "Stigma" from the album Wings, among others. He composed music for the song "Run", that was used with the original lyrics from Jungkook's for the next album The Most Beautiful Moment in Life, Part 2.

Later, V also tried his hands in singing solos and covers of popular English tracks. He sang the cover of "Hug Me" with bandmate J-Hope followed by a cover of "Someone Like You" by Adele. V's second solo song, "Singularity" was released as a trailer or BTS' then-upcoming third LP, "Love Yourself: Tear".

Singularity & Solo Songs

"Singularity" gradually gained momentum in the music world as it became popular among the youngsters. The song that was released in May 2013, featured on BBC UK radio in October. It was added to the list of "Top 50 songs for the month of June 2018" playlist by The Guardian. The song bagged 28th spot on Billboard's Critics' list of the "Top 50 BTS songs".

It ranked twentieth on The New York Times list of "The 65 Best Songs of 2018" alongside BTS's "Fake Love". "Singularity" was named fourth "best and most replay worthy song of 2018" by LA Times Pop Music Critic Mikael Wood. Guardian Music Critic Laura Snapes also included it as one of her favorite tracks in “Best Music of 2018: Albums and Tracks".

On 24 October 2018, the President of South Korea awarded him the prestigious fifth-class Hwagwan Order of Cultural Merit medal. With this, V became the youngest recipient of the honor. Other members of BTS were also honored for their role in the spread of culture.

V's first full solo track outside his group BTS was released on January 30, 2019 through the group's SoundCloud page Titled "Scenery", the ballad was written as well as composed by V, himself. He also photographed the cover artwork for the song. It was produced by Big Hit Entertainment producer Docskim, and also had additional contributions from Big Hit producers Pdogg and Hiss Noise.

The song gave a record-breaking performance on SoundCloud as it reached 100 million streams from 20 million over a fortnight, marking the shortest ever time for the platform. The streaming went nine times ahead in the next 15 days.

Seven months later, V went on to release another song titled "Winter Bear" under SoundCloud. He made a self-directed video for the same which was released on the Youtube channel of BTS.

Collaboration with his band members & other artists

V joined hands with his bandmate J-Hope to collaborate with Swedish singer Zara Larsson. The trio recorded a song titled "A Brand New Day" which was a part of their soundtrack album of a mobile game of BTS World. The song released on June 14, 2019. It went to become the number 1 song on World Digital Song Sales Chart. V also collaborated with his bandmate Jimin for the song "Friends".

V then joined hand with bandmate Jin to churn a duet titled "It's Definitely You". On the occasion of BTS' fourth anniversary, V collaborated with bandmate RM to release "4 O'Clock" on June 8, 2017.

In 2020, V collaborated with the JTBC drama Itaewon Class for a song titled "Sweet Night" The complete English song made way to the fans in March. It was written, sung, and produced by V. The song climbed on number two spot on Billboard's U.S. Digital Song Sales chart. With this, the song became the highest debut for a Korean soloist in the chart's history.

I Purple You

During the BTS fan meet in November 2016, V coined the term "I purple you" while talking to his fans. Giving details about the same, V said that he just made it up right there while interacting with fans. The color purple stand for the hues of love, hence "I purple you" means "I love you" and "I trust you".

The term became popular with the BTS fans ever since. It was in fact, used by UNICEF for its anti-bullying campaign in association with the BTS group.

As per the analytical research of google searches done by Eugene Investment & Securities Co., Ltd., it was found out that V is the most popular keyword searched in the last five years in South Korea. This clearly means that V is the most popular celebrity in South Korea for half a decade.

Role in Hwarang

Many a time, V has shared in several interviews that he has been fond of acting since a young age. V implemented his love for acting into action with the 2016 historical drama "Hwarang: The Poet Warrior Youth". He bagged a supporting role in KBS2 film.

He portrayed the role of Suk Han-sung, the youngest hwarang of the lot in the film. His character was shown as a person with a warm personality who gets along very well with everyone. Suk Han-sung carries the heavy burden of being the last jin-gol of his clan, Wolseong but it doesn't let him lose his charm and innocence.

While shooting the music video for "Danger", V was supposed to cut his own hair. As he could not really cut off his real hair for the video, V wore a wig. The shot had to be taken in a single go, so V should have been very careful in picking up the right strand of hair from the wig before cutting it off. But V ended up cutting his real hair instead of the wig !

References