The Road To Glory [EN]: Chapter 121

Glorious Tides – Episode 12

# Episode 12: The Essence of Rap

When Halo still looked clueless, Jang Jin-soo went directly to the computer and showed him the MIDI [Musical Instrument Digital Interface, a technical standard that describes a protocol, digital interface and connectors] functions.

“What do you think?”

Initially standing with his arms crossed, Halo’s face changed rapidly. There was surprise, shock, amazement, and even a mixture of understanding and joy.

‘Come to think of it, this is the distant future.’

Not just a simple SF [Science Fiction] setting where you can contact people far away, but an era where everything has changed and developed rapidly.

In an age where people share their music and can listen to it anytime, there’s no way the composing technology would remain the same.

‘Still, this is…’

Sounds that could only be created by borrowing or purchasing in the old days are now made with just a click. What was once considered someone’s fantasy has become a reality. An era has come where anyone can create music without being bound by economic or other limitations.

“So, that’s why the world has become so rich.”

“What are you talking about?”

A rebuke comes back at the sudden remark.

Halo, not caring at all, stared intently at the computer.

‘If I have this…’

Accepting Jang Jin-soo’s provocation was just a whim.

Somehow, even the problem he was struggling with has been solved.

If he can create sounds with this, he no longer has to rack his brains over recording.

“That’s all I know. Ask Jin-young hyung [older brother or male friend] or Gong-hak hyung for the rest. I learned it from them too.”

When he asked a few more questions, Jang Jin-soo immediately showed reluctance. He really didn’t know much except for the basic beats he used in his song. Since he didn’t know, there was nothing he could do.

Halo put aside his desire to learn for a moment and decided to start with Jang Jin-soo’s song. He doesn’t urge him, but he seems anxious, so Jang Jin-soo immediately gave up his seat.

Halo took a deep breath in front of the complex program and grabbed the mouse and clicked. He starts to move.

To him, rap is still a new generation of music and close to an unfamiliar area, but based on the rap that the rappers he has met have shown him, the essence of rap was never speed.

Of course, he agrees that rapping that spits out 17 syllables per second is cool.

But that’s only when the rapping is skillful. If it’s an amateurish skill that stutters the lyrics and makes the listener anxious, it’s better not to do it at all.

You have to take a beat that you can handle properly.

He knows why Jang Jin-soo insisted on a fast beat: because he has to stand out among the many people who applied for the audition.

But again, the essence of rap is not speed. So, there’s no need to insist on speed to stand out.

“Hey, honestly, isn’t it hard to keep up with your own song?”

“…A little.”

“‘A little,’ my foot.”

Halo laughed at Jang Jin-soo’s answer and recalled the clumsy rap. It collapsed on its own without anyone nudging it from the side.

“Hey Halo, are you sure you’re making it well? I don’t think you listen to hip-hop much.”

“I haven’t listened to it much.”

“Then how?”

In fact, if it was just a song with only rhythm, he wouldn’t have been sure after completing it. That would really have to depend on the skills of the singer or rapper.

However, Halo listened to the hip-hop song from Ssoyou [likely a reference to a Korean singer or group] while riding the subway. It was a bit different from the ones in Harlem, but it was even better.

Because it was a fusion that combined his most confident ‘melody’.

What Halo wants to create is, in fact, the melody that will follow the beat, rather than the beat itself—the part commonly called the ‘hook’. The beat was only going to extract the original form from what Jang Jin-soo made and add variations.

Jang Jin-soo is still grumbling without listening, but he will soon hear the completed MR [music recorded without the vocal track] and shut his mouth.

Because it will be so much better than his song.

“That…!”

As expected, Jang Jin-soo, who was trying to find fault in any way, soon shut his mouth. No, he opened his mouth wide and listened to the music. He doesn’t say a word until the end. Of course, he has no choice.

It’s the first genre he’s ever made, so he doesn’t know how much of a hit it will be, but it must have sounded good without any hitches.

Halo took the song created in a few minutes for granted. If it was his song, he wouldn’t have been satisfied with it as it is, but the goal of this song was to be easy to sing.

‘It’s a little quiet now.’

Halo crossed his arms.

It was so noisy that it was about to cause a headache, like a Black Friday ajumma [aunt or middle-aged woman, often used to describe a pushy or loud woman]. If he hadn’t shut his mouth on his own, he would have kicked his butt and chased him outside.

“You made this?”

“Yes. I just added some flesh to it.”

“If you’re talking about Jin-soo’s song, it’s completely different.”

Bae Gong-hak admired the song plainly.

Halo thought it was better because this person didn’t make a fuss, but others knew that Bae Gong-hak was really surprised.

Originally, he is an indifferent human being with not much emotional range, but he was reacting to an unusual degree.

“Hyung, do you think this is better too?”

Jang Jin-soo was correcting the lyrics when he suddenly raised his head. His face is already bright. There is no sign of anxiety about the submission deadline. He declared that it was his as soon as he heard the first song.

“Much better.”

“So it wasn’t just me who liked it.”

Jang Jin-soo seemed to have already erased his own song from his memory.

“What about Jin-young hyung?”

“Good.”

“Right?”

The studio becomes quiet.

Jang Jin-soo didn’t notice and lowered his head, but those who knew Han Jin-young well tapped him on the back for no reason.

Han Jin-young is trying not to show it, but he has a complicated face.

“Don’t you feel like smoking?”

“Let’s go out.”

I was going to ask him to teach me MIDI, but the timing was a bit late.

‘I can tell him later.’

While waiting for Jang Jin-soo to correct the lyrics, Halo played the guitar he brought from home.

Doom doom doom.

It was the four songs that would be included in the 1st album [Struggle].

It gradually becomes stronger and more cheerful from the dark tones, like the song of the people who led the French Revolution. But this is not a song for the people’s revolution, but closer to a more personal struggle.

When he was a teenager when he made this album, he was more angry and wanted to fight against the society that was trying to suppress him. Therefore, [Struggle] is full of his emotions at the time.

In some ways, it’s so densely packed that it’s old-fashioned.

Jang Jin-soo tapped his feet to the exciting melody and raised his head, and after discovering a serious face, he buried his head in the paper again.

[Struggle], which can be said to be the beginning of Halo, won first place on the NME [New Musical Express, a British music, film, gaming, and culture website and brand] chart in less than two weeks after its release and held the throne for three weeks. And there was a slow reaction overseas.

With records that could not be seen as a rookie, he immediately became a star.

What did the critics say about [Struggle]?

Was it typical Sixteen’s music?

Was it a song that incited model students?

Some said that a guy who doesn’t know anything about composing or music won first place with luck and an album cover.

At that time, he just laughed at the critic who praised him as a ‘vulgar propaganda with a handsome male model on the album cover’, but now he felt regret.

The structure and composition of the song began to be seen.

‘I’m not going to change it though.’

His hands move on their own, in a better direction, leaving the freshness of that time but adding the maturity of an adult.

‘I’d like to remake it like this when I have time later.’

The reason why he doesn’t want to change it is because the past remains in the music as it is. That’s what his teens were like.

He is not ashamed of his clumsy past. Rather, he was proud because that time made him who he is now.

“You composed that too?”

Did you fix all the lyrics?

Jang Jin-soo even put down his pencil.

Halo, who glanced at the lyrics, nodded.

At that moment, Jang Jin-soo jumped up from his seat, shouting, “Really?”

“No, did you really write that kind of song? You?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh, how?”

I don’t know what you want to say.

Jang Jin-soo rubbed his arm with a foolish face.

“What the hell are you?”

“Did you fix all the lyrics?”

With one word, Jang Jin-soo stopped making a fuss and lowered his head. Looking at his eyes, it seems like he roughly fixed it, but he doesn’t seem confident.

I don’t know why the guy who confidently showed off his trashy song suddenly lost his confidence, but I don’t want to know. I was worried about whether he could handle it properly.

“Sing it once if you’re done.”

“Without MR?”

“I’ll play it for you first.”

I thought I was done if I made the song, but I’m not satisfied with what he’s doing. Rather than leaving it alone, it seemed better to point out everything one by one.

‘I have to be a babysitter.’

Halo grumbled and clicked the space bar.

“Again.”

Bae Gong-hak, who came in after smoking longer than usual, found Halo frowning and Jang Jin-soo squatting in front of him.

I knew they were the same age and friends, but just looking at this, they look like a producer and a trainee he takes care of, not friends.

‘If it were other kids, I would have just said they were cute.’

If Bae Gong-hak didn’t know these kids, he would have thought they were playing producer and singer. But Bae Gong-hak knows the children well, so he couldn’t think that way.

‘Especially that one.’

Bae Gong-hak looked at No Halo, who was pointing out each thing with his arms crossed. He certainly looks like an ordinary middle school student—just a so-so kid with a little slow growth.

When I first saw him, I thought it was strange that he was comfortable in someone else’s studio.

What should I say, he’s as reckless as any middle school student, but sometimes I see a sly snake wearing a middle school student’s mask.

It’s not that he doesn’t have any sense, but he keeps poking Han Jin-young’s reverse scales [sensitive spots], and the arrogance and confidence he sometimes shows are not something that an ordinary middle school student would have.

So I just thought it was strange.

‘But it wasn’t strange, it was special.’

From ‘strangeness’ to ‘specialness’.

These words, which differ by only one syllable, are almost similar in dictionary terms, but people unconsciously define different meanings.

For example, something strange is just different from the norm.

Something special is better than usual.

Yes, Bae Gong-hak realized it now: No Halo, that middle school student, is not just strange, but extraordinary.

And maybe he’s very outstanding.

That doesn’t mean Bae Gong-hak suddenly felt jealous of No Halo.

Bae Gong-hak was naturally calm, and he had become duller as he got older. If he were a similar age, he might have been jealous, but No Halo is just a middle school student. Bae Gong-hak did not question his life and talent enough to be jealous of a middle school student.

However, this is Bae Gong-hak’s story.

Han Jin-young seemed a little different.

“He’s just a middle school student, how is that possible?”

Han Jin-young knew that Jang Jin-soo’s self-composed song was clumsy, but he was shaken after listening to the song No Halo made because there were so many difficult parts that he couldn’t fix it much.

“Is it possible that you’re mistaken about the music you heard sometime? Why, that could happen.”

“Well, that could be the case. That’s a problem that can be compared using a program later. But why are you so serious?”

“How can I not be serious? A middle school student made a song that’s better than mine, haha.”

Han Jin-young said with a smile, but Bae Gong-hak and Kim Deok-soo discovered the inferiority complex in it. Han Jin-young also knows his own appearance and smiles bitterly.

“Am I a little like that now?”

“A little?”

“A lot.”

Han Jin-young nodded at Bae Gong-hak’s words.

“I’m sorry. I just suddenly had a reality check. But please bear with me just once. I won’t show it to those little kids.”

“Smoke moderately and let’s have a drink.”

“Thank you.”

Han Jin-young exhaled.

The gray breath that came out with a sigh seems to reflect his troubled mind.

“Bae Gong-hak, don’t you have any thoughts?”

“Uh, I just think he’s young but great. About this much?”

“That’s like you.”

Bae Gong-hak thought more deeply about Han Jin-young’s question.

“And…”

“Huh?”

“I’m curious. He seemed clumsy with MIDI. I wonder how much he can do if I teach him.”

“I think I’ll feel more self-conscious if he shows me more.”

“Well, that could be the case. On the contrary, you might feel proud.”

“How?”

“That I taught him well.”

“I think he’ll do well even if I teach him roughly.”

“You don’t know that. You know, most well-known musicians had great teachers. Even Mozart’s father was a musician. Well, he might have done well even without a teacher, but maybe not as well as he is now. You know, there are kids who meet strange people and ruin their lives.”

“Are you talking about someone like Salieri [Antonio Salieri, an Italian classical composer who was once rumored to have been jealous of Mozart]?”

“Hey!”

Kim Deok-soo suddenly shouted at Han Jin-young’s question.

“I know what you want to say, but that’s wrong. Our Salieri Sensei [teacher] never harassed Mozart. It’s just an adaptation of the Amadeus movie. He was such a perfect and great person that even Mozart respected him! The only flaw of our Sensei is that there are no descendants to sue for defamation!”

“Why is he suddenly like that?”

“Salieri must have appeared in the cartoon he’s watching.”

“Ah. But doesn’t the anime he watches only have girls coming out?”

“Do you know how pitiful our Antonia Salieri Sensei is?!”

“Antoni’a’?”

“He should have had descendants.”

Han Jin-young burst out laughing at Bae Gong-hak’s monotonous words.

Kim Deok-soo’s remarks were dizzying, but his bad mood improved. Han Jin-young, who had been laughing for a while, put out his cigarette and said,

“You teach him. I can’t.”

“You teach better than me.”

“I can’t.”

Bae Gong-hak tapped Han Jin-young on the shoulder.