People Pt.2

Album: D-Day (2023)
Charted: 105
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Songfacts®:

  • "People Pt.2" is a song by South Korean rapper Agust D, the name Suga uses when releasing solo projects away from BTS. Released as a digital single on April 7, 2023, through Big Hit Music, the pop and hip-hop track serves as the first single from the rapper's debut studio album, D-Day.
  • "Agust D" comes from "Suga" spelled backwards, and the "D" stands for his hometown, Daegu.
  • Written amid the pandemic-era blues, the track is a continuation of 2020's emotional "People," a fan favorite off Agust D's second mixtape, D-2. While the original "People" found him reflecting on his own life and how people judge you, this time around he's feeling the loneliness and craving some real connection with others.

    "Not only me, everyone has this loneliness inside them until the moment they die," Suga told Billboard. "However deep you are in a relationship, how much you engage with other people, how many friends you meet, or how often you meet with your family, you always have the loneliness inside."

    "I wouldn't say there's much difference in that everybody can feel pain and agonized," he added. "It's the same with me. Whether it's me from BTS, Suga, Min Yoongi, or Agust D, I always have that inside me too. People might see me as someone who wouldn't have any concerns or worries or that I don't feel any agony, but I feel those emotions too. I'm trying to find a way to fight those and overcome those too."
  • South Korean singer IU croons the chorus in English. She stresses the importance of living in the present and making the most of the time we have. The two collaborated before on IU's 2020 single "Eight," on which Suga features and also handled the co-writing and production.
  • On "People Pt.2," Suga's switching things up with some melodic rapping that contrasts nicely with IU's voice. He wanted to make a super catchy pop song, so he brought in IU to lighten things up and add that pop-focused touch.
  • Suga co-wrote "People Pt.2" with the South Korean singer-songwriter and producer El Capitxn while working on his 2020 mixtape D-2. The pair collaborated on four D-2 tracks as well as IU's "Eight." El Capitxn created the production based on boom bap rhythms.
  • The original title for this track was "Sara." "Sara" is just one consonant away from "saram," which means "people" in Korean. Depending on which consonant you add to the end of "sara," it can become "saram" and mean "people," or "sarang" and mean "love" in Korean. So, Suga left it up to the listener to decide which ending consonant to throw on.

    "I had my friend listen to this song and people heard it as "sal-ah" which kind of means "live" in Korean and I was like, 'This is not going to work," Suga explained. "So, we finalized the title to be 'People' in the end."
  • Completed while still working on D-2, the song remained unreleased for three years as BTS-related promotional activities for "Dynamite" and "Butter" took precedent. Agust-D finally released the song on April 7, 2023.
  • Agust D and IU performed the song together for the first time on the April 10, 2023 episode of her YouTube talk show IU's Palette. They also gave the debut performance of their 2020 collaboration "Eight" on the same show.

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