Content Warning: This article contains mentions of suicide and self-harm, reader discretion is advised
BTS’ SUGA, whose real name is Min Yoongi, and who uses the stage name Agust D for his solo projects, has been open about his struggles with mental health from the start of his time in the spotlight. His new single out of his brand-new solo album D-Day “Amygdala” is all about facing his past trauma. The video for the song is highly representative of its lyrics and while it was published on YouTube freely initially, it has since been given an age restriction and a content warning barrier by the platform.
Viewers must be over 18 years old to watch the music video, and even then, they must consent to proceed to the video after a warning reading “the following content may contain suicide or self-harm topics” appears across the screen. We Got This Covered has written about the meaning of “Amygdala” before, but the music video had not yet been released at that time.
Indeed, Agust D doubled down on the already disconcerting lyrics of the song for the clip. The video starts with a sleeping Min Yoongi, in a black-box-shaped room, which is meant to signify his amygdala — the region in the brain primarily responsible for “processing emotions and memories associated with fear.” He is awakened by a road accident that affects another version of himself that we can interpret as being “real life” Yoongi.
This accident actually happened in the early days of his career, when the rapper was only a trainee under BigHit, about a year before BTS’ debut. At the time, the company wasn’t financially sustainable, and Yoongi had to work as a delivery boy to support himself. He injured his shoulder and didn’t tell the company for fear of being let go. He finally underwent surgery eight years later in November 2020, when the pain became impossible to manage.
The video then shows Yoongi harming himself, leaving a gash around his eye that fans will recognize as the scar from his past music videos for “Daechwita” and “Haegeum.” Several theories have been drawn up about the meaning of the scar, but it’s generally agreed that it is symbolic of his trauma — it’s raw in “Amygdala”, slightly healed in “Daechwita,” and almost faded in “Haegeum”. A physical wound that signifies the artist’s own inner psychological healing over the years. Whether this scene is an admission by the artist that he has hurt himself in the past is merely speculative.
After the chorus, a series of images flash across the screen in succession, featuring pills, hospital rooms, basketball courts, and the same box cutter the artist used earlier on in the video to create the wound, among others. Although “Amygdala”‘s lyrics explain a lot, we need to reference back to an earlier Agust D song called “The Last” to understand this imagery. In it, the rapper admits to struggling with depression, OCD, and social anxiety, and visiting a psychiatrist.
In the bridge for the 2016 song, the musician raps “The doctor asks me if I’ve (censored). I answered without any hesitation that I have.” The lyric is actually censored by a beeping sound so we don’t know for sure what he meant, but between “The Last” and the music video for “Amygdala,” it’s possible to deduce.
It’s important to note that although “Amygdala” ends with the “real life” version of Agust D failing to save the trapped version, the artist has talked extensively about feeling much better now and having found mature ways to deal with negative emotions. In the song he says “the neverending trials failed to kill me, and once again I bloom a lotus flower” — a sentiment echoed in “The Last” where he raps “I hope you don’t worry because I’m really okay now.”
If you or someone you know may be considering suicide, contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 (En Español: 1-888-628-9454; Deaf and Hard of Hearing: 1-800-799-4889) or the Crisis Text Line by texting HOME to 741741. A list of international crisis resources can be found here.