Mainstream: BE:FIRST Put Seven Men in a Concrete Cathedral and Refused to Look Small

Calling a song “Mainstream” while making it this skeletal is either confidence or a very expensive dare. BE:FIRST sound like they already know which answer they prefer.

RaeRae verdict: bottom line

“Mainstream” is BE:FIRST declaring that the center does not have to sound safe. The track leaves unusual amounts of exposed space around its bass, percussion and voices, then asks seven performers to make that emptiness feel intentional. They do. The song does not chase the loudest trend in the room. It argues that their own hip-hop-rooted movement, vocal flexibility and internal creative work can define what the room moves toward next.

I love the nerve more than I love every melodic choice. The hook is designed as a statement before it is designed as something warm enough to sing absentmindedly. That chill is part of the point, but it also creates distance. “Mainstream” impresses me immediately and grows on me slowly.

Release file

The empty space is doing actual work

The production refuses to carpet the floor. Bass arrives with hard edges, percussion leaves air between impacts and the voices often enter without a comforting pad underneath them. That exposure turns every rhythmic decision into evidence. A lazy syllable would hang there. A weak handoff would sound like the track briefly lost power.

BE:FIRST use the space as permission. One member can lean behind the beat, another can sharpen a consonant and the next can open into a more melodic phrase without the arrangement fighting all three. The song keeps changing vocal texture while preserving the same low center of gravity.

Lyrics and meaning: sKY-HI’s argument is bigger than bragging

The official release framing says BE:FIRST are not trying to jump onto the mainstream. They are defining themselves as people who can create it. That could become empty executive language very quickly. The production saves the claim because it does not sound focus-grouped toward maximum immediate comfort.

The lyrics still live in assertion, and assertion has a shelf life if the performance cannot keep finding new shades. BE:FIRST avoid one-note swagger by varying the delivery. Confidence can sound cool, amused, impatient or nearly conversational. Nobody needs to shout the thesis in the same font for three minutes.

Seven voices, seven different relationships with rhythm

The filming-era lineup is SOTA, SHUNTO, MANATO, RYUHEI, JUNON, RYOKI and LEO. Historical accuracy matters because this exact 2023 file belongs to all seven, even though BE:FIRST later continued as six.

SOTA hears the track through movement, so even his vocal presence seems connected to where the next count will land. SHUNTO can roughen a phrase without dragging it. MANATO brings elastic musicality and makes tricky placement sound social rather than clinical. RYUHEI’s lower color gives the minimal track another shadow. JUNON can open the arrangement vertically when it becomes too enclosed. RYOKI attacks with an actor’s appetite for character. LEO gives the group warmth and prevents all this immaculate cool from becoming emotionally airless.

The distribution does not need everybody to prove the same skill. The song feels like BE:FIRST because the voices disagree productively.

SOTA and ReiNa choreographed the architecture

The choreography understands that minimal music makes unnecessary movement look desperate. SOTA and ReiNa use shape, level and directional change instead of filling every subdivision with detail. A held angle can carry as much weight as a traveling phrase because the beat has already created room around it.

SOTA’s authorship matters here. He is not merely the member executing somebody else’s idea most accurately. The group’s physical identity is part of the song’s composition. When the dancers interrupt a line, widen a formation or let one body arrive a fraction later, they are arranging what the viewer hears.

The concrete scale is not background decoration

The music video places seven bodies against enormous concrete volume and industrial geometry. Those spaces could swallow a less certain performance. Here, the negative space becomes the visual equivalent of the track. The group has to generate scale without relying on crowded sets or a hundred extras pretending a party happened.

Wide shots are essential. A close-up can sell confidence, but only distance proves that the formation survives the architecture. The camera repeatedly gives the choreography enough room to make the members look like they chose the location instead of being abandoned there.

The video later earned choreography recognition from the London International Awards. I understand why. Its visual ambition does not replace the dancing. It creates a harder test for it.

What the camera gets right

The strongest cuts respect musical ownership. When a new voice changes the texture, the frame changes its question. Sometimes that means center. Sometimes it means a shift from facial detail to formation scale. The edit knows choreography is not raw footage waiting to be made exciting later.

I would still hold several wide shots longer. The video knows it has one of the year’s most deliberate choreographies and occasionally behaves as if I might become bored seeing it. I will not. Let the phrase finish.

Where Mainstream keeps me outside

The conceptual rigor creates emotional distance. “Mainstream” wants to be studied, replayed and recognized as a declaration. It is less interested in being vulnerable. That is a valid artistic choice, especially for a group establishing authorship, but it means the track enters my brain through admiration before affection.

The hook also depends heavily on performance context. Strip away the concrete scale and seven bodies, and its sparseness feels riskier. The voices keep it alive, but the video supplies intimidation the audio alone has to earn more gradually.

Why this belongs in a K-pop-adjacent archive

BE:FIRST are Japanese, and calling every Asian dance group K-pop erases actual industries. This archive follows the owner’s listening ecosystem, cross-border collaborations and performance vocabulary without relabeling the group. “Mainstream” matters because it shows a Japanese act using familiar idol-group tools while insisting on a specific BMSG creative model.

That distinction becomes even clearer beside ATEEZ in “Hush-Hush.” BE:FIRST do not suddenly acquire an identity during the crossover. “Mainstream” proves they carried one into it.

What changed every time I replayed it

First replay: the concrete space wins. Second replay: I watch SOTA and the outer formation instead of whoever owns the close-up. Third replay: the voices become choreography too, each entrance changing the shape of the beat. Audio-only, the track feels smaller and stranger. That is not failure. It reveals how aggressively the music video completed the thesis.

The detail that stayed with me was restraint. BE:FIRST could have answered the huge location by dancing larger every second. They trust held space. That trust is the threat in the title card.

Sources and receipts

• BE:FIRST “Mainstream” official music videoDaily+4.6KTotal views48.6M
• BE:FIRST official release statement and song credits
• BE:FIRST official London International Awards notice
• TYO production and award record