BTS SUGA’s D-Day is the conclusion to a trilogy that opened with his 2016 mixtape Agust D, but truly started back in Daegu when the rapper was struggling to survive and was just getting into the music scene.

Like with Agust D and 2020’s D-2, D-Day is another musical journey through SUGA’s thoughts and his state of mind. So far, all of the solo material that BTS has released has been incredibly personal and deeply relatable and with SUGA, you kind of get that taken to the next level with this incredibly passionate and powerful mixtape.

Honestly, he has a kind of knack for tearing his own heart out and rapping while (metaphorically) bleeding all over the place.

D-Day is a ten-track journey into SUGA’s psyche.

From the titular track to the painful “AMYGDALA” to the artist’s version of BTS’s 2020 release “Life Goes On” – his version was the runner up for release but ultimately wasn’t chosen – we’re faced with the full extent of SUGA’s musical expertise.

SUGA lays out his cards in D-Day and this time, he has the winning hand.

As a huge fan of D-2 – barring one little snafu that was swiftly rectified – I’ve been so excited for D-Day because it is the last release we’re getting from SUGA before he enlists this year. It contains not just every emotion he’s experienced between D-2 and now, but the depth of his feelings, emotions, and experiences that couldn’t fit into his previous releases. It contains passion, frustration, agony, and excitement. It is, for me, a close to perfect album.

There are two tracks that absolutely captured fans’ minds and no, I’m not actually going to be talking about his feature with the iconic IU, “People Pt.2”.

“Haegeum” – a track that feels like a follow up to 2020’s “Daechwita” in its use of traditional Korean instruments and the music video’s themes of duality and doppelgängers, was the song that dropped a music video that left fandom shaking… but then he dropped the incredibly vulnerable “AMYGDALA”.

 In “AMYGDALA”, SUGA confirms and picks at some established BTS lore centered around the accident that caused him such severe injury that, almost a decade later, caused him to require surgery and rehabilitation. SUGA never shies away from his pain in that song, and I recall people crying as they realized that he was laying out the pain and trauma of getting what could’ve been a career ending injury… before his career even really had a shot.

Other songs on the album that hold me tight are “HUH” featuring his labelmate and bandmate j-hope – a song I find often myself shout-singing along to in my room as I’m working – and the incredibly poignant “Snooze” featuring the late Ryuichi Sakamoto, a musical genius who’s been in my life as a music fan for years longer than BTS has been.  

Across D-Day, I experience a music fan in communication with other music fans, with his idol. I experience SUGA expressing himself in one final (for now) blow, flaying himself for his fans and sharing his soul to a rapt audience.

I cannot look away.

I cannot hit pause.

There are no skips on D-Day and I mean that I would rather sit on my hands than touch the pause button or skip a song when I’m listening to it in full.

In D-Day, SUGA forces you to pay attention to him as a person who’s grown and shaped himself and… it’s a fantastic release. We’ll have about two years of no SUGA once he enlists, but D-Day is a more than appropriate placeholder that will allow us to wallow and/or bask in SUGA’s unique and revealing approach to hip hop that blends chasing international musical trends trends with his shameless, bold authentic embrace of hip hop and rap culture as he laces it into his life as a Daegu-born rap maestro.

If you’ve missed it, of course I am a huge fan of SUGA. I know I’m a loud and proud RM bias and I stick with it, but SUGA is the member of BTS whose career trajectory, connections, and aspirations appeal to me the most. He is the most relatable to me as he shows this painful, worn growth as an artist. I want to be like him because of what I’ve seen him do over the years and he’s the member of BTS that I think I’m the most like.

While I am parasocially mourning his enlistment – though I understand the role it plays in cultural contexts – I also find myself eager to see what SUGA will do next once he has further wealth of experience to build from and time to think and write in the private (military) sector.