Did You Know This Anugerah Contestant Was A Backup Dancer For BTS When They Were In S'pore?

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Spend a few minutes with Akif Halqi and one would assume performing comes naturally to him.

When 8days.sg met the 30-year-old Anugerah contestant, he was dressed head-to-toe in black and brimming with energy, and more than happy to break into dance and ham it up for our cameras during the interview.

Turns out, he's had plenty of practice.

At the time of this interview, Akif is in the top eight in Anugerah and has consistently garnered the lion's share of the public vote each week. But Akif says he started singing when he was just four years old and has been performing for years.

Sadly, Akif was eliminated from the competition on September 29.

It's not quite the end of the road, though. Six of the eight eliminated contestants will get another shot in the wildcard round, with their fate decided by fan voting.

An announcement on who the six are will be revealed on September 30.

The Ngee Ann Polytechnic Mass Communications graduate is the youngest of four sons. His recently retired dad, 64, worked as an engineering supervisor, while mum, 66, is a former chef who is now a housewife.

Oh, and there's this little detail on his performing CV. He was a backup dancer for BTS. Yes, that BTS.

Back in 2019, BTS brought their ‘Love Yourself’ world tour to Singapore, and somewhere on that massive stage was Akif.

He tells us he was paid around S$500 to S$600 for the gig and had to submit an audition video before being selected as one of the dancers.

You might assume being a backup dancer for BTS meant getting to rehearse alongside RM, Jin, Suga, J-Hope, Jimin, V and Jungkook beforehand.

Not quite. According to Akif, the first time he actually saw BTS was on the day of the concert itself, despite rehearsing about two days prior.

So imagine being a fan, suddenly finding yourself sharing a stage with one of the biggest K-pop groups in the world, while still having to remember choreography.

"Okay, so imagine. So I had to look cool," he says, before casually side-eyeing an imaginary BTS beside him.

And apparently, Akif may have tried to engineer a little "accidental" encounter backstage too.

He tells us this is the first time he’s sharing this, admitting that he once took a little walk towards the restroom, which just happened to take him past BTS' room.

"I might have tried going to the toilet, and maybe pass by their room, but there were two huge security guards who directed me to the restroom," he recalls.

Well, you never know till you try, right?

Now, before you think the BTS gig was Akif's first brush with K-pop, it isn’t.

In fact, he competed at the K-Pop World Festival in 2017, where he won Best Vocalist.

For someone who started singing as a four-year-old on a bus, performing K-pop on a major stage in Korea was something he never imagined happening.

"Singing K-pop on stage, and I'm like on one of the biggest stages in Korea, and then winning the competition, it's just everything. I wouldn't have ever thought that lah. Like, I wouldn't even expect that when I was a kid singing in a bus,” he recalls.

So with a K-pop competition win and a BTS gig already under his belt, we had to wonder: Why join Anugerah at 30? 

He credits his mum for this decision.

Even when friends and family kept tagging him and encouraging him to audition, Akif wasn't so sure until he got his mum's blessings.

For all his infectious energy in person, Akif admits the years spent pursuing his love for performing haven't always been easy, and that there have been plenty of moments when he considered giving up.

"People don't see the vision as you, and people don't really, you know, maybe they don't appreciate my kind of music, my kind of singing. Which is okay, because everybody is entitled to their opinions, but sometimes these kinds of things, especially when you're alone at home, you just kind of like brood over it. So it gets pretty lonely sometimes,” he shares.

And that's a rather different Akif from the ball of energy we have been exposed to.

"There are days where I don't feel like performing, but when I step on stage, and then hear everybody cheer, and, you know, just the love, right? It reminds me about the passion and the love of performing. That's why it keeps me going,” he muses.