The Rap Star [EN]: Chapter 180

Verse 27. 888 Crew Version 2

The second act of the evening, the 888 Crew’s performance, began with an address from poet Choi Hak-rim. He briefly spoke about the significance of the exhibition and offered a tribute to Paik Nam-june, whose legacy would be forever remembered.

Following this was an introduction to the 888 Crew.

“The team here, 888 Crew, is a rap group from Korea. They are quite famous in South Korea, but I imagine those of you from abroad may not know them.”

The art interpreters busily translated Choi Hak-rim’s words for their respective clients. The audience’s curious gaze turned to the 888 Crew.

“I don’t know how it is for those of you here, but I personally had prejudices against rap as a subgenre of popular culture. I thought it used rough, direct language to convey sensational and violent messages.”

And that prejudice was broken by the small—no, not small at all—festival that the 888 Crew held next to AIMMF [Asia International Music Market Fair].

Choi Hak-rim slowly unfolded the story of his meeting with the 888 Crew, and the inspiration and energy he received through their music.

Foreign reporters were surprised that the people standing behind Choi Hak-rim, whom they had thought were mere volunteers, were the performers. To the reporters, the 888 Crew didn’t have the arrogance or attention-grabbing aura typical of major artists. To put it nicely, they seemed plain; to put it harshly, boring.

In fact, the issue of ‘Video Art – Paik Nam-june’s Death’ was so significant that the 888 Crew hadn’t been covered in detail. The lack of information about the 888 Crew, even when they tried to find it, was also a major reason.

-In my opinion, the 888 Crew writes the most complete lyrics and performs the most impactful rap music in the Korean hip-hop scene.

So, through Choi Hak-rim’s interview, only an abstract and vague image of ‘the most outstanding crew in the Korean hip-hop scene’ had been created.

But when they actually met them, they were so different from the imagined image. They had been expecting veterans in their 40s who had steadfastly maintained their position in the barren Korean hip-hop scene.

‘They look too young to be the best team in the Korean hip-hop scene?’

Foreign reporters took pictures while thinking that the 888 Crew looked very young.

However, they only thought that they looked particularly young among young-looking Asians, and they couldn’t imagine that Sang-hyun and Jun-hyung were high school students. If they knew that three of the crew members were high school students, they would have been shocked.

To put it a little hyperbolically, they were entrusting the highlight of an exhibition that modern art masters from all over the world were paying great attention to, to high school students.

But clearly, in terms of lyrics, the 888 Crew was at the pinnacle of Korean hip-hop, even considering that the history of Korean hip-hop isn’t very long.

“Rap and poetry have something in common in that the speaker constantly clashes with the world. Considering that the late Paik Nam-june’s eternal major premise was communication, the part that the genre of rap can show us today may be even greater. I’ve been talking for too long. Now, let’s start the full-scale performance. Thank You, Merci, Danke, Spahseebah [Russian for ‘Thank You’]. Thank you for listening.”

With greetings in various languages, Choi Hak-rim stepped down.

Now, the only ones left in the main hall were the six 888 Crew members, excluding Sang-mi, who was not participating in the performance.

Amidst the gazes of about 140 people, the leader, Jun-hyung, stepped forward.

“Hello. We are 888 Crew, a rap group from Korea.”

Jun-hyung’s comment was simple—just a brief introduction to the crew and his feelings about today’s performance.

After all, it was impossible for them to convey anything to the artists and intellectuals of the time through words. In the end, all they could show was music.

And the beginning of that music was initiated by Min-ho.

“I have one request to make of you all for the performance. Could you all give a shout? Come on, don’t hold back. Just shout ‘Wah!’ once.”

-Wah!

A powerful cheer was heard from somewhere.

The eyes of the Korean sponsors, who had been frowning at Min-ho’s undignified request, turned to the source of the cheer. But a moment later, they were all shouting along with awkward expressions.

Because the source of the cheer was Bruno Racine, the director of the Centre Pompidou in France, the most famous modern art museum in Europe.

“Good. Then, could you give a boo just once? Woooo.”

-Woooo.

The reporters enthusiastically took pictures of Bruno’s active appearance and booed along.

“Last one. Everyone, laugh out loud. You can laugh forcibly, or you can laugh while looking at this friend’s ugly face.”

Min-ho pointed to Sang-hyun’s face and took the lead in laughing loudly. Soon, the main hall was filled with slightly forced laughter of ‘Ha ha ha’. But as they laughed, the unnatural laughter turned into natural laughter.

Perhaps it was because Bruno Racine put his hands on the shoulders of the surrounding dignitaries and burst into laughter.

“We don’t know much about video art, and we don’t know much about the art of the late Paik Nam-june. But while studying for the performance, we couldn’t help but encounter a two-letter word. That’s communication.”

Even as he spoke, Min-ho continued to manipulate the laptop. People seemed quite curious about what he was preparing.

“And communication and impulse are the two most important elements in our 888 Crew music. This is… the method of communication we came up with.”

When Min-ho pressed the button, a machine hidden inside the desk, invisible to people, rose up with a buzzing sound.

It was the MPC.

MPC originally stood for Mimi Production Center, but over time it became the abbreviation for Music Production Center.

The MPC was a machine that could never be left out when discussing the development of hip-hop. To exaggerate a little, the people in the ghetto might not know Japan, but they couldn’t not know Akai, the Japanese company that invented the MPC.

The MPC has various functions, but the most important function is to store ‘sounds’ on ‘pads’. When you press each pad, the sound stored on the pad flows out, and you can create music by combining those sounds.

Originally, it was a machine made as a drum machine, but someone started storing sampled sounds on each pad, and its use was expanded as a sampling machine.

Min-ho had a 16-pad MPC, and the pad storage type was 4 types.

16 X 4.

That meant he could use a total of 64 sounds.

But today, Min-ho had only prepared 60 sounds. The audience filled in 3 of the 4 missing sounds just now. With their voices.

Because the audience’s cheers, boos, and laughter were recorded and stored on the MPC.

-Boom, boom, boom, boom.

Very basic 8-bit drums began to flow through the speakers. This was because Min-ho was pressing the drum pads, which would be the backbone of today’s performance, at a constant speed.

‘What is he trying to do?’

People who were unfamiliar with the MPC machine itself thought this, but some of the artists who knew the MPC were slapping their knees.

Today, the DJ, Woo Min-ho, was not going to play an already completed beat, but was going to create the beat live, on the spot.

So, in today’s art, his trembling and tension, the influence of audience response, minor mistakes, changes in emotions, etc., would all be revealed without distortion.

“Oh, my God!”

Bruno Racine, the director of the Centre Pompidou, exclaimed with sparkling eyes like a child. He perfectly understood that even his exclamation would become part of video art and rap.

What if DJ Woo was surprised by his exclamation and messed up the beat? That would be communicated as it is and become an eternal trace.

‘How did he think of this?’

To hip-hop musicians, MPC’s live beat-making performance might not be surprising at all. It may be a very clichéd act to someone.

But that’s what art is originally.

Everything changes depending on what it is, with what significance, and where it exists.

Marcel Duchamp’s ‘Fountain’ became a representative work of Dadaism because the urinal, which is encountered every day, was exhibited in an art museum.

The same thing was happening now.

The three elements of ‘poetry and rap, on-site performance (MPC), and recording (filming)’ were being sublimated into art with the three meanings of ‘meeting of spatial art and time art, Paik Nam-june’s communication, and video art’.

Even in a small country called Korea in the Far East, which is the periphery of the periphery in terms of hip-hop culture.

Oh, a not-so-small cheer flowed out from among some artists. They were all making satisfactory expressions.

It was the Korean reporters and wealthy people who were not very interested in art who were embarrassed by the reaction of the artists.

It was refreshing to make music by tapping something, but they thought that it was something that should have been done in advance during the preparation period.

Even in the meantime, Min-ho’s MPC play was moving towards completion.

The MPC had a function that could automatically repeat a sound that had been tapped once indefinitely. In other words, it was possible to put other sources on top while maintaining the drum line that created the skeleton at the beginning.

A classic piano performance began to rise above the solid and calm-sounding drum loop. Then, a strange feeling of nostalgia was felt between the solidity and calmness.

It was something that could not be undone and had already been given up, but the regret did not disappear from one side of the chest. It felt exactly like that.

The audience quickly checked the title of the first song. Art interpreters became busy along with them.

The title of the song was ‘Let’s Live by the River’.

It was a song that Ha-yeon and Min-ji made into a rap based on ‘Mom, Sister, Let’s Live by the River’ which Kim So-wol published in Gaebyeok No. 19 in 1922.

Since 70 years had passed since the death of the late poet Kim So-wol, there was no copyright issue.

“Miss Oh. What is the meaning of the word riverside?”

“I know that it symbolizes a peaceful state and nature in the original poem.”

“But the music doesn’t feel like that at all. It’s like singing about what happened after they couldn’t live by the river.”

“Is that so?”

“It’s very interesting. I’m so curious to see how the bourgeois who ignore popular culture will react to this sight. I’m also curious to hear what the hip-hop musicians in the United States will say. Do you happen to be friends with the Albae musicians? I’m greedy for an interview.”

Oh Yeon-joo tilted her head at the first word she heard.

“Albae?”

“Ah, I guess you don’t enjoy wine. There is a Spanish table wine called ‘Hacienda Albae 888’. It’s embarrassing that I made a joke.”

The editor-in-chief of a prominent American art magazine looked at Oh Yeon-joo and gave an embarrassed smile.

“I’ll pass on the interview offer. I can’t give you a definite answer because I’m not the person in charge.”

“That’s the greatest favor Miss Oh can do. Thank you.”

Oh Yeon-joo finished talking with the editor-in-chief and began to focus on the music again. Woo Min-ho’s face, making beats with a flushed face, was full of vitality, and it had a strong power to attract people’s attention.

A moment later, Woo Min-ho’s MPC play, which had lasted for 2 minutes, finally came to an end. Even if he didn’t tap the pad anymore, a complete beat was flowing out.

Verse 27. 888 Crew Version 2 End

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