The Rap Star [EN]: Chapter 109

< Verse 16. Ripple Effect >

“What are you looking at!”

“Didn’t you look first? Or did I?”

“T, this is for the manager to give to PD [Producer Director] Heo Tae-jin……!”

“Wh, who said anything?”

“The look on your face right now…….”

“No, I personally gave PD Heo my album, but you’re making ridiculous accusations…….”

“Who cares! The manager said to give it, so I’m giving it!”

“Since when have you listened so well to the manager…….”

Lee Sang-hyun’s muttering made Dread frown deeply.

“Hey! And aren’t you ’88-born? You’re five years younger than me, who are you talking down to?”

“Did you use honorifics with our crew *hyung*s [older brothers/male friends]? They’re all ’82-born? And how do you know my age?”

“Your *dongsaeng* [younger sibling/friend] put it on Hiphopplaya for everyone to see, so why are you acting up?”

“The reality of 888 Crew……?”

“Yeah! Th……that…….”

“…….”

“…….”

A strange silence flowed in the hallway.

Sang-hyun frowned and stared at Dread before asking.

“Are you some kind of underground fan club? A dark *Palsamo* [affectionate term for fans]? Should I sign it for you?”

“Do you really want to die? You crazy bastard? And this is a signed copy, you don’t need to sign it for me……!”

“…….”

“…….”

Silence fell once more.

Dread realized that he was losing the argument the more he spoke, and he stomped away towards the end of the hallway.

Lee Sang-hyun still stared at Dread with a strange look.

“What’s with that guy? Is he a pervert?”

There were 50 signed copies released, and 47 people had uploaded *injeungshot*s [proof/verification photos] to get the t-shirt. Could one of the remaining three be……?

Sang-hyun shuddered for a moment, then dismissed the thought as impossible and made himself a coffee. Maybe the company had signed copies mixed in with the albums they bought while preparing for the Hiphopplaya The Vibe program.

“Aish, *ssi* [an expression of annoyance]! Why did I get flustered?”

Meanwhile, Dread stomped into PD Heo Tae-jin’s office. However, he couldn’t hand over the album to PD Heo Tae-jin.

“What are you talking about? I never said anything like that to the Code Name manager…….”

“Yes? Manager *hyung* [older brother/male friend] definitely…….”

“Perhaps there was some misunderstanding? Or maybe they mistook another assistant director or PD for me.”

“Ah, that could be it.”

Dread nodded, bowed, and left PD Heo Tae-jin’s office. He suddenly felt a surge of anger.

‘If this is the case, *ssibal* [a Korean curse word, similar to ‘fuck’], it really looks like I bought and kept the 888 Crew album myself?’

Dread, who had been angry for a while, looked at the Official Bootleg for a moment before shoving it into his coat pocket. It seemed that the manager had bought the album personally but was wary of him, so the situation got twisted. He was quick-witted in this kind of situation.

‘Now that it’s like this, if I keep this album, the manager will sweat a little, right? He must have been happy thinking it was a signed copy.’

Dread suddenly felt better at the thought of teasing the manager with this album.

Teasing him by pretending to give it back and then not giving it back, the manager’s expression would be priceless? I definitely have to keep this.

That’s how the dark *Palsamo* [affectionate term for fans] began its activities.

***

Hiphopplaya The Vibe 2 adopted a format of four rounds per episode. Also, the four teams of performers changed completely with each episode.

The performers for Episode 1 were Code Name, Stars Records, Bounce Rhyme, and 888 Crew.

The broadcast time was finalized at 1 hour and 20 minutes, and the performance time for each team varied slightly in each round, but it was between 10 and 15 minutes.

The round rules were simple.

Round 1: Performance on a free theme. 12 minutes and 30 seconds per team. No elimination. The 1st place team decides the matchups and order for Round 2.

Round 2: Performance on a theme drawn by the opponent. 12 minutes and 30 seconds per team. 1 team is eliminated. 3 teams remain.

Round 3: Diss battle. 15 minutes per team. 1 team is eliminated. 2 teams remain.

Round 4: Performance on the theme of hip hop. 17 minutes per team. The winning team receives a final prize of 2 million won and the opportunity to appear in the King of Kings battle.

Hiphopplaya The Vibe 2 was scheduled to be broadcast for a total of 4 weeks, and recording was scheduled to take place for 6 weeks.

The reason why all eight members of the 888 Crew came to Seoul today was for the first recording.

“Bae *hyung* [older brother/male friend]!”

Jun-hyung, who had been spacing out in the waiting room, perked up when he spotted Bae Sang-wook passing by the window.

He had arrived a little early and had nothing to do, but it seemed that Stars Records had finally arrived.

“Where are the other *hyung*s [older brothers/male friends]?”

“Two are parking, and two went to the bathroom.”

“*Oppa* [term used by females to address older brothers/male friends], hello.”

“Hey, Ha-yeon. How did your college entrance exam go?”

“Pardon? I haven’t taken the college entrance exam yet.”

“Really? Isn’t it usually in early November? I went to some test-taker festival on November 5th last year.”

“This is the first year of the 7th curriculum, so it’s about two weeks later. It’s November 17th.”

“Ah, it’s not long now. You have to prepare hard and do well. You’ll probably just *jjikgo naojigetjiman* [just pick random answers and come out], anyway? Where did Sang-hyun go?”

“He said he was thirsty and went to get coffee.”

Bae-ga ignored Ha-yeon, who was shouting, ‘I’m a good student!’, and slumped down on the sofa in the 888 Crew’s waiting room. The remaining members of the 888 Crew, who had been whispering among themselves, belatedly discovered Bae-ga and greeted him happily.

Bae-ga felt a mixture of joy and a strange sense of rivalry at seeing the 888 Crew members after a long time.

This 888 Crew’s Triple Eight had given a lot of inspiration to the rappers in the Korean hip hop scene. No, the expression ‘inspiration’ seemed too small, and as he had commented on the Hiphopplaya bulletin board, they had presented a ‘new worldview’.

He sincerely thought that the 2nd album Stars of Stars Records was the ‘connection right’ of Korean hip hop. On the other hand, 888 Crew’s album was a ‘new book’.

He suddenly remembered when he first heard Fuck the Show Business and was so impressed that he tried to scout Sang-hyun for a Homi performance. What Sang-hyun said when he tried to scout him alone.

‘Our crew members are really good. I feel so sorry that the spotlight is only on me right now, but the day will come when we’ll properly show the Korean hip hop scene.’

And as Sang-hyun said, the 888 Crew was showing it properly. With Official Bootleg.

The fact that Stars Records’ 2nd album Stars sold 12,000 copies was because it accurately targeted the underground demand. On the other hand, 888 Crew was *tal* [escaping] underground. The musicians’ identities were undoubtedly underground, but the ripple effect of the music was *beoseonago isseunikka* [getting out of it].

So Bae-ga definitely wanted to win this Hiphopplaya The Vibe 2. He wanted to face off against 888 Crew in the finals and win.

Isn’t it the role of a veteran to knock down a passionate rookie and give them room to grow further?

At that time, Sang-hyun entered the waiting room and spotted Bae-ga. Sang-hyun smiled happily and approached in one stride.

“*Hyung* [older brother/male friend]. When did you get here?”

“Just now.”

“Have some coffee.”

“Am I not taking away from you guys?”

“No. I brewed plenty.”

While they were drinking coffee and talking, the remaining members of Stars Records, who had received Bae-ga’s text message, also entered the 888 Crew’s waiting room.

Sang-hyun and the 888 Crew members greeted them happily. Except for Woo Yeon-woo, whom they had met during the Indie Kid featuring, it was the first time they had seen each other in a long time.

Stars Records had a wide network of connections and many guest members and features, but to be exact, it was a team of five members.

Leader Bae Sang-wook (Bae-ga). Producer and rapper Woo Yeon-woo. Rapper Yeom Hyun-pil (Feelnight). Rapper Oh Myung-jin (Jack’O). Vocalist Kim Yu-hwa.

The 888 Crew’s waiting room soon turned into a marketplace due to the music stories shared by the 13 musicians.

“Ah, right. Ha-yeon. I know what you were saying.”

“Pardon? What?”

Woo Yeon-woo said.

“You said you get angry when you listen to Crouching Rhymer last time when we were recording. Ah, I got so pissed off when I listened to it too.”

“Why?”

“When I listened to Crouching Rhymer, I felt like the track I had spent all night making a guide for was too short. So I tweaked the beat and increased it to 32 bars, but this time it felt too long. When I reduced it back to 16 bars, it felt a bit bland…….”

“Sang-hyun, is that an idea you got from listening to Canibus?”

“Yes, of course. Wasn’t there some buzz in the US when 100 Bars came out? I thought almost all hip hop fans would know, but there were people who said I was the first person in the world to rap 100 bars.”

“Canibus isn’t a very famous rapper in Korea.”

Oh Myung-jin, who had been listening quietly, asked.

“But what’s that? Group song remix. Who’s Standard? Is he from LA Koreatown? Is he Korean?”

“No. He’s from Denmark, but he’s active in LA right now. Standard originally made the beat for the group song too.”

“Did you guys request the concept? To make it trap?”

“Uh…… we requested the group song. To give that trap feel. But this remix was really suddenly sent one day.”

“I went to LA about a month ago and saw NPQ magazine? Standard’s song was quite high on the charts there. The title was Eight, Eight, Eight Remix, so I just thought it was a strange coincidence, but when I came back to Korea, this song came out, so I was surprised.”

“What’s NPQ?”

“One state in the US is almost the size of our country. Well, some are smaller. Anyway, so each state has a Billboard-like magazine that represents the state.”

Some Koreans take Billboard as a kind of music statistics office, but Billboard was a magazine name.

Billboard, founded in New York in 1894, began compiling and publishing popular music rankings in the mid-1950s. Since then, the Billboard rankings have been recognized for their credibility and have become an indicator of the trends in popular music not only in the United States but also in countries around the world.

However, these Billboard rankings could only cover 35 charts in the vast United States. As a result, underground songs that caused a sensation in each state were often not properly covered.

As a result, authoritative magazines in each state began to play a role like Billboard in the region, and NPQ was the most famous music magazine in LA.

“But how big is LA?”

“Well, it depends on whether you’re talking about the city of LA or the metropolitan area. If you’re just talking about the city of LA, it’s not that big. It’s a little bigger than Gwangju, maybe?”

“But how do they rank like Billboard? Are there that many albums? And is there a difference in sales?”

“You guys don’t know that well? LA is a place where not only hip hop but especially the underground scene has developed. If you hit it big in LA, you can sell more than 200,000 albums. Of course, you can sell that much if you hit it big in other states too.”

“200,000 copies?”

“Yeah, if you take the top spot in LA and then swallow up the state of California, you could sell 1 million copies? Don’t you know Tupac? California Love.”

When Oh Myung-jin hummed the intro of California Love, Park In-hyuk suddenly started imitating Dr. Dre’s dance from the music video. People burst out laughing at the unexpected behavior.

Sang-hyun also laughed and recalled his phone call with Standard. Come to think of it, he seemed to have heard the words ‘some ranking is skyrocketing’ during the call with Standard last time. He didn’t hear it properly because he originally called about Standard’s beat pay.

“Hey, anyway, the remix beat is really sick.”

“Yeah, I never imagined they’d mix in dubstep.”

Woo Yeon-woo, who was most impressed by the Eight, Eight, Eight remix, replied.

“But why didn’t you use that kind of beat when you collaborated with us? Were you saving it? Did you not trust us?”

“Pardon? No. The beat I did with *hyung*s [older brothers/male friends] is also a Standard beat?”

“Is Standard discriminating against people?”

Bae-ga grumbled. For a while, the story of Official Bootleg and the 2nd album Stars continued.

At that time, the door of the 888 Crew’s waiting room opened and a staff member came in and said.

“Lee Sang-hyun-ssi [Mr. Lee Sang-hyun]. PD Heo Tae-jin wants to see you for a moment.”

“Pardon? Just me?”

Sang-hyun shrugged and left the waiting room, following the staff.

< Verse 16. Ripple Effect > End

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