BTS‘ Jungkook Explores Qatar in ’Dreamers’ Video Featuring Flying Whales

BTS‘ Jungkook dropped the video for his solo track “Dreamers” on Tuesday (Nov. 22), a kind of travelogue in which the singer explores Qatar, the site of the 2022 FIFA World Cup. The dreamy song that is part of the official soundtrack of the global football classic that kicked off this week in the tiny Middle Eastern country features Jungkook singing alongside Qatari artist Fahad Al-Kubaisi.

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The clip opens with a stunned-looking Jungkook wandering through a brightly lit corridor before emerging into a space filled with pulsing lasers as dancers in a market join him on a stroll through the city. Meanwhile, Al-Kubaisi sings his bits from the deck of a huge schooner as Jungkook croons from atop a skyscraper amid images of children watching digital whales break free from the bonds of the ocean and soar above skyscrapers.

The visual ends with Junkook singing the song’s hopeful refrain, “Look who we are, we are the dreamers/ We make it happen, cuz we believe it,” surrounded by dancers holding up flags from around the world. Jungkook premiered the song at the opening ceremonies for the quadrennial international tournament over the weekend.

The solo BTS star is one of the few pop artists who’ve participated in the events surrounding this year’s World Cup, which has come under scrutiny for the process of awarding the bid to the tiny religiously conservative Gulf skeikdom, where homosexuality is a crime and where officials banned a rainbow flag armband meant as a show of solidarity and diversity. Qatar has also come under scrutiny for the thousands of deaths among the migrant workers who helped build the stadiums where the games are being held, with reports that the laborers were paid unfair wages and housed in substandard, broiling conditions in the nation where temperatures can rise above 120 degrees in the summer.

“Dreamers” is Jungkook’s second solo song this year amid BTS’ ongoing hiatus, following on the heels of his “Left and Right” collaboration with Charlie Puth.

Watch the “Dreamers” video here.

Gil Kaufman

Billboard