K-TOWN

BTS' 'Mic Drop' Remix With Steve Aoki and Desiigner Certified Gold by RIAA

2/3/2018 by Tamar Herman

Courtesy Photo
BTS "MIC Drop"

Coming off the best year of their career thus far, BTS has one new thing to celebrate as they move into 2018: the group just made history by becoming the first Korean group to have a song certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).

On Saturday night (Feb. 3), featured rapper Desiigner broke the news on Twitter, saying “Miic Drop went gold” and tagging both BTS and Steve Aoki, who produced the remix version of “Mic Drop.” 

The song, released in November, is BTS’ first stateside hit, and peaked at No. 28 on the Hot 100 chart. It has remained on that chart for nine weeks and currently ranks at No. 84 (as of the Feb. 3 chart update). The remix of “Mic Drop" has been gaining traction on a variety of other charts, and last week the song debuted on the Rhythmic Songs chart at No. 40, which tracks radio play on stations that cross the divide between pop and R&B/hip-hop.

Being the first Korean group to ever see an album accredited gold by the RIAA is a major achievement for the boy band that has been making headway stateside thanks to their dynamic music style and a fiercely dedicated fan base known collectively as ARMY. It is the second Korean song to gain this distinction, following Psy’s “Gangnam Style,” which went multi-platinum in 2012 and 2013, for its digital and physical versions, respectively.

Read the lyrics to 'Mic Drop' Here

To be certified gold by the RIAA, a song must move more than 500,000 equivalent units between digital downloads and audio and video streaming, with 150 streams counting toward the equivalent of one formal unit.  

BTS’ local rep Eshy Gazit also celebrated the news, telling fans that Desiigner's label, Def Jam Records, had alerted him of it. The Korean act and Aoki have yet to publicly comment on the achievement at time of publication.

“Mic Drop" was released in its original version in September on BTS’ Love Yourself: Her EP, while the remix came out in November. The album peaked at No. 7 on the Billboard 200, the highest-ever by a K-pop group.