Meet Pdogg, the musical dynamo helping shape BTS’s greatest hits

As a producer, I think the most important thing is to highlight the strengths of each artist. We need to make sure that each voice strikes a balance in the context of the entire song. “Dynamite” was originally composed of vocals, so we had to find a way to make sure that all seven of our members in BTS could be reflected in a natural way.

I try to make it a comfortable environment where I provide motivation for further exploration. If there are ideas from the artist that I feel need to be built up a bit more, then I try to explain it to them and provide some sort of guidance. All of this is based on absolute trust between the artist and the producers. Whether it’s BTS or [fellow Big Hit group] Tomorrow x Together or even our trainees, we communicate a lot with the artist before their debut, when they’re still training. This builds trust over time and motivates them from a very early period of their career.

BTS, when they were trainees, after their day was over and they were done with the work, they would still come into the studio and write songs. I thought it was because they were still starting out, but even [now] when they go on world tours, in their hotels or on the plane, they continue to work on their songs. They would send me an email or message [to] ask me for ideas, or send tracks in. And these are songs that eventually ended up on albums or on mixtapes.

For “Black Swan,” from Map of the Soul: 7, we wanted to reflect the emotions of what the artists felt at that time. I came up with the beat, and the members, the songwriters, and the other in-house producers worked from this beat and created the melody. We pieced these things together as they went on. The characteristic of BTS is that their own stories are contained in the music. So we talked to the artists, they wrote the lyrics, and there was this continuous process of exchange between the songwriters, the producers, and the artists as they continued to give their input.