The Rap Star [EN]: Chapter 271

It might be unbelievable for Sanghyun, but he was currently the most recognized member of Golden New Era.

Surpassing even Kendrick Lamar and J. Cole.

Perhaps because of this, the cheers from the audience grew louder from the moment “No Color” was anticipated.

There was anticipation for the song itself, but it also seemed like there was anticipation for FiveSix, the real hero of *The X Factor*.

Sanghyun, hearing the piercing cheers, scanned the audience from left to right, as always.

He had stood on countless stages and seen countless audiences, but today felt truly special.

It wasn’t like Junhyung’s usual pre-stage remark, ‘This is the most nervous I’ve ever been on any stage.’

It truly, truly felt like the most special stage he had ever been on.

Because this was the Grammy Awards.

The most famous music awards show in the world.

‘So, I have to put on a Grammy-worthy performance.’

At that moment, Sanghyun’s mouth opened.

Yeah, that’s right, the color of my skin exposed to the light is different

But the color of my blood flowing beneath my skin is the same

So red it’s almost black, a yellow label someone put on me

Kicking away that track and spitting out a track chasing the path to success

Has an Asian ever performed at the Grammy Awards?

As far as Sanghyun knew, never.

He knew there were Asian-American mixed-race individuals with American citizenship, but there was no Asian like him with a different nationality altogether.

Because of this, in Korea, they were using words like ‘first,’ ‘precedent,’ and ‘history,’ and saying that Sanghyun’s performance would be empowering for many Asian musicians in the United States struggling with racism.

But Sanghyun wasn’t interested in that.

He was only interested in rap and the stage.

He was focusing on bringing out the ‘FiveSix vibe’ he had learned through *The X Factor*.

Speak like a 5-year-old, ‘I’m not fake, I don’t lie’

If I were in Korea, my pockets would be full of car keys

56-inch monster wheels, 56-foot building

I threw it all away and became an underground rapper 56 in America

As Sanghyun began to rap, the public began to have great expectations. This was partly because “No Color” was a song they knew well, but more so because the stage composition was interesting.

Kendrick Lamar and J. Cole had created completely different vibes with the same beat.

Kendrick felt like he was spitting out pieces of steel from a furnace, and J. Cole felt like he was lying in Forest Hills (J. Cole’s hometown in Queens, New York) listening to a friend’s story.

So, what kind of vibe would FiveSix create?

In particular, *The X Factor* fans had high expectations. They wanted to see another proper solo performance from FiveSix, like “Lonely Road.”

However, these expectations soon turned into bewilderment.

I’m not a K-Town rapper. My K stands for King and Kill

My heroes are the same as yours. 2Pac and Biggie

If the killers of Pac and Big appear before me

The bail I’ll pay is 10 million dollars.

It wasn’t that the public felt bewildered because Sanghyun was bad at rapping.

The reason they felt bewildered was…

‘This is lip-syncing?’

Because FiveSix was lip-syncing.

And it wasn’t a ‘lip-sync track’ made to pretend to be live, but a perfect recording track that had even been mastered.

It wasn’t just the public who felt this bewilderment.

Most of the Grammy Awards attendees who were watching the stage with interest were thinking similarly.

But something was strange.

‘But it’s the Grammys?’

The Grammy Awards had a rule that performances had to be live.

In 1989, there was a historic fraud that shocked the global popular music scene.

The protagonists of the fraud were the black duo Milli Vanilli.

Milli Vanilli was a mega-hit rookie who reached number one on the Billboard album chart with their debut album and sequentially placed 3 out of 5 promoted singles at number one and 2 at number two.

Milli Vanilli won the award, one of the main awards at the Grammy Awards in 1990, but soon after, their fraud was exposed.

According to the ghost vocalist’s revelation, Milli Vanilli had never participated in the recording of the album and had performed all stages with lip-syncing.

In fact, until then, the Grammy Awards was an awards ceremony that allowed lip-syncing for performers. However, after this historic fraud, it was changed to an awards ceremony that did not allow any lip-syncing from 1991 onwards.

So, it was strange.

There was no way that a tradition that had been going on for over 10 years would bypass only FiveSix.

‘Could it be live?’

However, the ‘sound quality’ being delivered was too different to be considered live.

No matter how good you are at performing live.

Kendrick and J. Cole were really good at performing live, but their live performances were great within the category of ‘live.’ But FiveSix’s rap right now was at a level that would be amazing even if it were done in a recording booth.

Even with numerous suspicious gazes intertwined, Sanghyun’s rap continued.

In the meantime, Sanghyun’s rap was already heading towards the end of the 16 bars.

Everyone, whether they had doubts about it being live or not, was deeply immersed in Sanghyun’s performance.

Professor Kim Woon-chul had once evaluated Sanghyun as having ‘tremendous appeal in certain situations.’ Conversely, this meant that he couldn’t fill all sounds in a special way.

However, Sanghyun broke his own mold while appearing on *The X Factor*, and completely internalized it through his meeting with Eminem.

Because of this, the vibe conveyed by the “No Color” that Sanghyun sang in California and the “No Color” that Sanghyun is singing now were on a different level.

Even if there were those who didn’t feel much emotion from Sanghyun’s “No Color,” it wasn’t the case with the current stage.

‘No Color, huh…….’

And this emotion resonated even more strongly with rap musicians.

The Grammys are a conservative organization and have subtly discriminated against rap musicians and black people.

Surprisingly, Jay-Z, Nas, Tupac, and Biggie have never received a ‘main award’ at the Grammy Awards.

Even Eminem, who held the number one spot on Billboard for 13 weeks, has never received a main award, and Kendrick Lamar in 2015, who was predicted to win a main award, also failed to win one.

Only Outkast, who are ridiculed as the ‘Grammy Family’ whenever it’s Grammy season, has won a main award as a rap musician.

The biggest reason for this discrimination is that there are many white veteran musicians in NARAS [National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences], the organization that has the greatest influence on the Grammy Awards.

In fact, Robert Plant and Alison Krauss’s album, which won two main awards at today’s awards ceremony, had lower sales figures than MTB when only looking at sales.

So, “No Color” shouted at this discriminatory and conservative awards ceremony had something that strongly resonated with the hearts of black musicians.

If the “No Color” that FiveSix had shouted until then seemed to be talking about discrimination against Asians, the “No Color” shouted in this place seemed to be talking about overall discrimination against black music.

The tremendous delivery of Sanghyun’s voice also raised this emotional immersion by one level.

-Wheeeee!

Starting with T.I., who was sitting in a swaggering pose, various rap musicians shouted. Among them was Jay-Z, who had shown great praise for MTB.

“It wasn’t just J. Cole who was a waste.”

“But is it live right now?”

“Of course. If you can show this kind of emotional delivery with a recording, the word concert will disappear.”

At that moment, Sanghyun’s verse ended.

The lights went out again the moment Sanghyun’s verse ended.

And in the darkness, the chorus of Mix Them: Black began to be heard.

If the previous two choruses were intense, the current chorus felt like a musician was about to be swept away by a typhoon.

As the chorus in the darkness ended and the lights turned on, all the audience could see were three empty chairs.

It was a performance where their music seemed to have been completely mixed into the darkness, like the title Mix Them: Black.

-Wow!

-Mix Them!

At that moment, the area of the lighting that had been illuminating only the front of the stage widened.

The audience, turning their eyes along with the lights, saw a TV placed behind the stage that was about 2M long and wide [approximately 6.5 feet].

The TV was showing some screens intermittently with static, and those screens showed discriminatory images of three different races.

A black man being excessively suppressed by the police.

A yellow man being ignored by a black man.

A mixed-race person being teased by both black and white people.

As the TV screen showed images of discrimination with static, a sentence appeared.

Beauty in The Struggle

The sentence soon turned into sound.

-Beauty in the Struggle.

The sound echoed as if it were coming from various places, filling the entire stage.

-Wow!

-Kyaaaaa!

People’s cheers broke through the sound.

Because ‘Beauty in The Struggle’ were J. Cole’s lyrics that filled the intro of MTB’s title song.

-Boom!

As if to repay the cheers, the screen of the super-sized TV shattered, and J. Cole, Kendrick Lamar, and FiveSix walked out from within.

There’s beauty in struggle, nigga.

Whether you’ve been ignored by someone,

Or threatened by the crew,

You just have to love your own thing

J. Cole’s verse, ‘Nigga, Yellow Monkey, Flip,’ began.

***

The Grammy Awards is a long awards ceremony that lasts a total of 3 hours, so it was important to make sure there was no time to take your eyes off it.

Because of this, there were no aspects such as placing attractions at the end like in Korea; rather, they poured out wonderful performances from the beginning.

However, as for ‘hip-hop performances,’ today’s Grammys were showing more and more wonderful attractions as they went on.

Starting with the collaboration stage between Coldplay and Jay-Z’s band and hip-hop, the performances of rap stars including Kanye West became more and more wonderful.

But no matter what anyone said, the highlight that was responsible for the first half of the Grammys was the ‘Golden New Era’ team’s stage.

The message was good, and the stage composition that conveyed the message was also good.

The three rappers had diverse personalities, and the synergy created by those personalities harmonizing in one place was also perfect.

And above all, the rap was good.

Even though they were guessing it wasn’t, many people were still surprised that FiveSix’s performance sounded like lip-syncing.

There were stages that became a hot topic after the Grammy Awards, and everyone was thinking that it would be Golden New Era’s performance.

However, there was a stage that started as if to break those thoughts.

It was “Swagga Like Us,” which won , which MTB was aiming for.

“Wow!”

From the moment the legendary stage that Sanghyun had always seen through the Internet began, he lost his mind and screamed.

Jay-Z, T.I., Lil Wayne, Kanye West.

And even the vocalist M.I.A., who came on stage while pregnant.

Can’t wear skinny jeans, because all the money won’t fit.

You can pay for school, but you can’t buy class.

The moment he saw Jay-Z’s stage, who asserted that no matter how much others poured in money, they would not have his level of swagger, Sanghyun couldn’t help but think of “Get that Money, Welcome to School.”

This was because the answer he gave to the future Jay-Z in 2006 was this song.

And now, the future Jay-Z had become the real Jay-Z, and surprisingly, Sanghyun was a musician who was on the same stage as that performance.

At that moment, Sanghyun felt like Jay-Z’s gaze was directed at him.

It wasn’t just Jay-Z. Lil Wayne, T.I., and Kanye West all seemed to be conscious of them.

At first, he didn’t know why, but Sanghyun soon realized their feelings.

The emotion they held was the desire to show a better stage to the ‘competitor’ who had shown a wonderful stage earlier.