Happy Birthday Suga: The BTS Superstar Who Worked as a Delivery Boy to Pay for Tuition

It’s common knowledge for BTS ARMYs that almost none of the members had dreamt or planned to become the global superstars they are today. Each member of the K-pop band has his own unique talents that make him essential to the group. Suga (real name Min Yoongi) is not only a stellar rapper, he is a major contributor into producing BTS’ music and writing their songs. Before joining BTS, he always planned on becoming a songwriter-producer, but chasing his dreams came at a cost.

He debuted as a member of the South Korean group in 2013, and in 2016, he released his first solo mixtape, Agust D. One theme that always makes its way into Suga’s solo music is his road toward achieving his dreams. Yoongi was born on March 9, 1993, making him the second oldest member of BTS, after Kim Seokjin. He hails from Daegu, the fourth largest city in Korea.

Yoongi did not come from an affluent background, and has been working part-time jobs since he was in school. During his high school days, sometimes he would have to choose between eating a bowl of noodles or riding a bus home because he didn’t have money for both.

Suga has talked about how he wasn’t interested much in studies and took to music soon. In high school, he was known as a rapper under the name Gloss. He also knows how to play the piano, which became the subject of his solo song ‘First Love’, in which Suga says the piano was his form of escape during his early school days.

Yoongi also enjoyed playing basketball, which actually led to his stage name being Suga. It is an abbreviated form of his former basketball position, which was shooting guard. He adopted the alias Agust D in 2016 for his mixtape, which is derived from the initials DT, short for his birthplace, Daegu Town, and ‘Suga’ spelled backwards.

If you have been following news on BTS lately, you probably know that Suga was missing in action during some part of 2020. The septet made appearances and performances without him for quite some time. That was because Suga had a shoulder injury and needed surgery.

The injury isn’t a recent one. As a 17-year-old trainee, Yoongi also had a part-time job. In BTS’ 2018 docuseries Burn The Stage, Suga said he used to be a delivery boy as he needed money for tuition. The BTS members were having dinner together when Suga recalled, “I was so frustrated at that time that I bought lottery tickets every week. You know, my future looked pretty dark at that time. A pig appeared in my dream at one point and began calling out the winning lottery numbers, but it stopped at the last minute. I was so devastated."

The other members, up until then, had no idea how Suga had injured his shoulder. He revealed that he had had a motorcycle accident while working as a delivery boy. He described how he found the motorcycle tire right in front of his face when he regained consciousness. Despite having dislocated his shoulder, he didn’t report it to Big Hit Entertainment because he was afraid he’d be fired. When Suga finally told CEO Bang Si-Hyuk, Big Hit paid for his college tuition.

Listening to the story, group leader RM realized this is what Suga mentions in his Agust D song, ‘The Last’. RM said, “Wow, that was the story. I was curious what on earth the lyrics ‘holding my smashed shoulders’ meant."

Bang Si-Hyuk’s amazing knack for spotting talent is well known, and his support for Suga paid off in the end. Yoongi has proven him to be an asset for BTS. After the group won a Grammy nomination, RM once said that Yoongi was majorly responsible for the achievement.

Suga is responsible for writing, composing, arranging, mixing, and mastering his material. Over 100 registered songs are credited to him by the Korea Music Copyright Association. He released his second mixtape, D-2 (the continuation to Agust D), together with the music video for its lead single Daechwita in May 2020, which peaked at #76 on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart.

BTS members are multi-millionaires now, with Suga’s delivery days far behind him. The IPO of their label Big Hit Entertainment also boosted Suga and his group’s fortune.

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