BM American Rapper With 2.7M Instagram Followers

Early life

BM, whose given name is Matthew Kim and who is also called Big Matthew, was born on 20 October 1992 in Los Angeles, California. He is an American rapper, singer, songwriter, composer and actor. He attended Upland High School before turning to music as a career.

In 2011 he left the United States for South Korea with the aim of auditioning for the first season of K-pop Star, a competition series broadcast by SBS. He reached the top 50 contestants but was eliminated before the later rounds. His Korean was limited at the time, and he has been described as losing his place in the lyrics on a number of occasions during auditions. The programme nonetheless led to a connection with the agency DSP Media, which recruited him afterwards.

Before his own group existed, he appeared as a guest on "La La La", a track from Goo Hara's 2015 debut EP Alohara (Can You Feel It?). He also partnered her as a dancer in the video and the live stages for the EP's lead single, "Choco Chip Cookies".

Career

DSP Media announced a new co-ed group named Kard in December 2016, built around a playing-card concept. BM was given the role of the King card. The group put out the first part of its debut project that month with the single "Oh NaNa", and made its official debut on 19 July 2017 with the EP Hola Hola. He contributed to the group's music from the start, first by writing and composing his own rap sections.

In November 2018 he was a featured artist on the title track of Zsun's album I'm On My Wave, and the same month he posted a self-produced song, "Better Myself", to SoundCloud. In December 2018 he took part in an episode of the JTBC variety programme Shall We Walk Together, made to mark the twentieth debut anniversary of the group g.o.d. He travelled with Woosung of Snuper and Heo Chan of Victon along the Santiago pilgrimage route for three days.

During 2019 he appeared on the cover of Men's Health Korea and joined the cast of the SBS series Law of the Jungle, which began airing on 13 June. In September of that year he received his first major credits as principal songwriter, composer and producer for the single "Dumb Litty"; its title comes from slang he used while living in Los Angeles.

In 2020 he was cast in HWAITING!, a Dive Studios variety programme that premiered on Facebook Watch on 12 February, alongside Ashley, Jae, Peniel, Jamie Park and Amber Liu. From July he hosted the Dive Studios podcast Get Real with Peniel and Ashley. He also featured with the rapper Nafla on "Put It On Ya", a track from Jessi's second EP Nuna, released on 30 July, and on 9 October he appeared as an intern on the TBS programme Hong Gi-mak Studio.

His solo career started in 2021. He previewed his first solo single, "Broken Me", on Instagram on 29 April, and has described it as a song about an inner struggle. He appeared in the music video for AleXa's "Xtra" on 1 July, and on 2 July issued his first single album, The First Statement, led by "13IVI". It also contains a deep house-influenced track, "Body Movin'", and a Korean version of "Broken Me". He wrote the lyrics for all three songs and took part in composing each one.

He released the digital single "Lost in Euphoria" on 21 January 2022, followed on 9 August 2022 by a second single album, Strangers, whose title track was the lead single. It also includes the hip hop-leaning "Bad Intentions", with lyrics by BM and a part in the composition of both songs.

He later auditioned for the Netflix series Beef and was cast as Woosh, a former tennis professional who runs the tennis shop at a country club.

Public roles

In March 2019 an answer BM gave during an Instagram Live about his favourite body part to train became a widely shared joke online and the basis of a meme known as the "Big Tiddie Committee". He later sold related merchandise under his clothing label, Staydium, and gave part of the proceeds to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. By April 2020 the label and BM had donated $20,533.75. In December 2020 a second Staydium collection, Healers X Staydium, directed a share of its sales to the non-profit organisation #STOMPOUTBULLYING.