BM
Matthew Kim crossed the Pacific for an audition his mother submitted, survived nearly five years as a trainee, and became the English-speaking, beat-building center of KARD. His solo catalog is where the jokes, muscles, vulnerability, club music, and very adult R&B stop taking turns and finally occupy the same room.
BM is both a KARD member and a verified solo recording artist. This is one canonical profile, not two duplicate bios. It belongs on the Members shelf and the Artists shelf.
Los Angeles first, Seoul by choice
BM was born Matthew Kim on October 20, 1992, and grew up in the Los Angeles area. Dance and American hip-hop shaped him before the Korean idol system did. That matters because his stage instincts never read like a trainee trying to borrow American club culture from a reference board. The English phrasing, physical looseness, and taste for bass-heavy production came from the music environment he already knew.
His move to South Korea was not a neat childhood-trainee story. BM has explained that his mother submitted him for the first season of SBS’s K-pop Star after seeing how much he enjoyed music. He moved to Korea in 2011, entered an industry whose language and routines were not yet comfortable, and did not win the program. What followed was the part profile summaries usually flatten into one sentence: years of training, language adjustment, uncertainty, and repeated proof that being charismatic in Los Angeles did not automatically make him ready for a Korean debut stage.
In later interviews, BM remembered how worried his family became during the five to six years he spent pursuing the career. Performing for his parents and relatives in Los Angeles after KARD debuted became meaningful precisely because they had watched the gamble from the other side of the ocean.
The trainee years were longer than the punchline
After K-pop Star, BM trained under DSP Media. Before KARD, he appeared in music connected to senior DSP artists, including a feature on Goo Hara’s “La La La.” Those small credits did not make him famous, but they show that DSP was testing him as a performer before building a group around the card concept.
His eventual value was broader than “tall English-speaking rapper.” He could dance, write, compose, arrange ideas for performance, and communicate directly with the international audience that KARD reached unusually early. The company’s 2016 rollout assigned him the King card, with J.Seph as Ace and Somin and Jiwoo as the Jokers. That concept could have remained cute marketing. BM helped give it practical weight by becoming one of the members who could move between stage performance and the machinery behind the song.
KARD: the co-ed group the market kept insisting was impossible
KARD began its pre-debut project with “Oh NaNa” in December 2016, followed by “Don’t Recall” and “Rumor.” The official debut came with “Hola Hola” on July 19, 2017. The quartet’s combination of moombahton, tropical house, EDM, hip-hop, and male-female vocal contrast landed internationally before the Korean industry decided what to do with them.
BM described moombahton as a symbol of KARD in a 2020 Korea Times interview. That description makes sense beyond genre labels. KARD’s best records create motion between voices: BM’s deeper rhythmic delivery, J.Seph’s sharper rap color, Somin’s polished upper register, and Jiwoo’s huskier tone. A co-ed lineup is not automatically interesting. KARD made the contrast part of the arrangement.
The group’s international success also exposed an awkward industry truth. They could draw committed audiences abroad, particularly across the Americas and Europe, while remaining under-promoted at home. BM became one of KARD’s most effective bridges because he could explain the music, joke without a translation delay, and speak to diaspora fans without pretending that cultural adjustment had been effortless.
BM did not wait for solo debut to become a creator
BM’s production identity became visible inside KARD before his own album arrived. His work on songs such as “Dumb Litty” helped establish the harder, festival-ready side of the group. Korean interviews from 2019 onward repeatedly framed his self-composed work as part of KARD’s evolution, not a vanity credit added after the fact.
He has also been unusually direct about process. Production is not presented as magical inspiration descending onto a handsome man near a laptop. BM talks about building beats, writing to performance energy, changing arrangements, and understanding what a crowd needs. By the time he released Element, Korea JoongAng Daily reported that he had written, produced, arranged, and mastered the project himself.
That control explains both his strengths and his occasional excesses. Nobody can accuse BM’s solo music of being timid. Sometimes the hook is blunt enough to arrive before the metaphor. Sometimes that is exactly the point. His catalog feels authored because the same instincts repeat across beat choice, vocal delivery, choreography, styling, and the way he talks about the record.
Solo music: vulnerability first, thirst trap immediately after
“Broken Me” arrived in June 2021 and made an important first move. Instead of introducing BM as nothing but K-pop’s gym joke, it centered emotional damage, isolation, and a darker rock-edged sound. The July single album The First Statement paired that track with “13IVI” and “Body Movin’,” making his range clearer: confession, swagger, and club movement were all legitimate parts of the same artist.
He followed with “Strangers” in 2022 and “LOWKEY” in December 2023. DSP and RBW described “LOWKEY” as a release whose planning and production carried BM’s direct participation. The song also clarified the lane he was choosing. BM was not attempting to imitate a polite Korean ballad soloist or sand down his American R&B influences. He leaned into adult desire, bass, dance, and the kind of performance that knows the audience has eyes.
| Release | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| “Broken Me” | The vulnerable solo opening, built around emotional fracture rather than the viral persona. |
| The First Statement | “13IVI,” “Body Movin’,” and “Broken Me” established his self-written solo range. |
| “Strangers” | A darker continuation that kept intimacy and unease in the same frame. |
| “LOWKEY” | The cleanest bridge into the mature R&B identity later expanded on Element. |
| Element | His first EP and the strongest proof that BM was building a complete solo brand, not releasing side-project leftovers. |
Element: adult K-pop without pretending adults do not have bodies
Element was released on May 7, 2024. BM described the project as beginning with the elemental curiosity and emotional exchange between people. The track list included “Embers,” “Loyalty,” “Motion,” “Nectar” featuring Jay Park, and “Badgirl Badboy” featuring KARD’s Somin.
The project’s “adult K-pop” label is useful only if it describes more than explicit lyrics. BM treated the record as a question of bodily confidence, consent, attraction, and sound design. He also chose not to build the campaign around weekly Korean music shows, telling OSEN that the material’s intensity and his performance goals fit other stages better. A solo tour and festival settings made more sense than forcing the songs through a promotional machine designed around broadcast approval.
“Nectar” carried personal significance because BM has cited Jay Park as an artist who influenced his decision to pursue music after K-pop Star. Getting the collaboration was not just a feature-placement flex. It closed a loop between the performer BM watched while uncertain about his future and the producer confident enough to invite that influence into his own record.
The Big Tiddie Gang became more useful than the meme had any right to be
The Big Tiddie Committee joke began after BM answered a livestream question about his favorite workout area. The internet did what it does, and the phrase spread across fandoms. BM could have sold shirts, collected the laugh, and moved on. Instead, an encounter with a fan undergoing chemotherapy pushed him to connect the merchandise to breast-cancer research and awareness.
Refinery29 documented how Staydium LA merchandise turned the joke into fundraising. That does not make every viral idol joke profound. It does show BM recognizing that attention can be converted into something more durable than engagement numbers.
His public work also includes hosting and podcast conversations, fashion activity, touring, and an acting debut in the second season of Netflix’s Beef. The through-line is not that he is secretly serious all the time. It is that the loud personality and the work ethic are not opposites.
Zodiac side quest: Libra diplomacy meets Water Monkey chaos
Western sign: Libra. The fan-reading version fits the social BM: charming, partnership-oriented, able to make a room feel less formal, and very aware of presentation. Libra energy also explains why his bluntness is usually delivered with a grin. He wants the reaction, but he also wants everybody to remain in the conversation.
Chinese zodiac: Water Monkey. Monkey signs are associated with adaptability, wit, improvisation, and the ability to turn a ridiculous situation into an opportunity. Add the Water element and the profile becomes more socially fluid and emotionally observant. That is almost suspiciously convenient for a man who turned chest-day banter into a charitable merchandise project.
This is a fandom side quest, not evidence. Astrology does not verify personality. It gives us a fun lens for traits already visible in interviews and public work.
RaeRae’s read
BM is easiest to underestimate when the muscles enter the room first. The jokes are loud, the lyrics are not pretending to be for a middle-school dance, and he absolutely knows what the camera is doing. Underneath that is a producer who spent years waiting to debut, helped a rare co-ed group survive in a market built around gender-separated fandoms, and then made solo music that sounds like his actual taste instead of a company-approved personality transplant.
Not every line needs to be subtle. Not every thirst trap needs a thesis. But BM is most interesting when the confidence and the bruising coexist. “Broken Me” matters as much as “LOWKEY,” and KARD’s international bridge matters as much as the meme.
YouTube tracking history
Current total checked against the official upload on August 12, 2026. Daily changes begin from this baseline.
BM – Broken Me official music videoDaily gain: baseline collection pending | Total views: 1,479,191Watch official videoSources
- KARD official BM archive
- Korea JoongAng Daily, BM on Element, May 7, 2024
- OSEN interview on Element and performance choices, May 7, 2024
- OSEN, “LOWKEY” release and production participation, December 1, 2023
- The Korea Times, KARD’s co-ed identity and BM on moombahton
- The Korea Times, KARD’s final DSP chapter, July 28, 2026
- DSP Media statement on KARD’s announced conclusion, translated by Soompi, July 6, 2026
- Refinery29, BM on turning the BTG joke into fundraising