The Rap Star [EN]: Chapter 190

< Verse 29. Just For The Record >

‘Amazing? How can they pull off something of this scale for free?’

That’s what the agency staff thought as they looked around inside JFTR’s showcase venue.

The 888 Crew, as always, showed no consideration for agency people or reporters. Consequently, the entertainment agency staff who entered the showcase venue were only those who had obtained tickets by luck.

And they couldn’t help but exclaim in admiration as they took in the surroundings, even before the showcase began.

The first thing that impressed them was the showcase venue itself.

Today’s venue, which felt like a huge lecture hall, was the renowned Shinchon MICE Center. MICE [Meetings, Incentives, Conferences, and Exhibitions] refers to a promising industry focused on international gatherings and exhibitions.

The Shinchon MICE Center held significant meaning in this context.

It was meaningful because the venue rental fee was expensive, and it was a public corporation, but the most important point was that it had never been allowed to be rented to entertainers before.

So, the MICE Center viewed the 888 Crew as distinct from ordinary entertainers.

This was possible because of their involvement with world-class artists through Poetry and Rap .

The second surprising thing was the diversity of the fans.

What is the most ideal type of fan for entertainers?

Of course, the answer would vary. Some might say an enthusiastic fan, and from the agency’s point of view, they might prefer a fan with a strong willingness to buy merchandise.

However, usually, the consensus is that the most ideal fan is ‘a fan who wants to spend time together.’ This meant a fan who liked the person for who they were, not a fan who consumed the entertainer’s glamorous image and left when that image faded.

In that sense, the 888 Crew’s fans showed a wide spectrum, not limited to female fans in their late teens and early twenties.

There were quite a few men in their mid-twenties or older, and some in their early to mid-thirties.

There were even fans in their forties who would have been high school students when Run-DMC [influential hip-hop group from the 1980s] hit the Billboard charts, making it a very broad fan base, unbelievable for a singer in their debut year.

The agency staff couldn’t help but admire the ideal composition of the fans.

And there was only one driving force that allowed so many diverse people to gather.

The fans who participated in JFTR today didn’t want to see the image of the entertainer 888 Crew. They wanted to experience the authentic music they would showcase.

Eight, Eight, Eight in da house!

Such expectations were evident in the tremendous cheers that poured out towards the 888 Crew, who appeared in response to the fans’ calls.

“Hello! We are the 888 Crew.”

The seven 888 Crew members bowed on stage. About 800 fans responded to their greetings with pleasure.

With continuous cheers.

-888 Crew! 888 Crew!

-Wow!

The Shinchon MICE Center was designed with a semi-circular ceiling, like an Italian cathedral, to concentrate and amplify the sound of the audience onto the stage.

This meant that the 888 Crew members on stage were feeling the cheers of the audience with their whole bodies.

The sensation of sound pouring in not only from the front where the audience was positioned, but also from above, beside, and behind.

And it instantly excited them.

This excitement naturally awakened Junhyung’s inner showman.

“Originally, we were going to spend 10 minutes introducing JFTR in detail, answering questions about it, and joking around with the host. We also had to introduce the tracklist. But I don’t want to do that. Your support, cheers, and passion are hitting me so hard, I can’t stand still.”

The audience shouted with laughter-filled cheers! But they weren’t cheering because of Junhyung’s comment.

It was because of Sanghyun’s humorous antics, making strange faces and mouthing words behind Junhyung’s back.

Junhyung, unaware of that, continued to unleash his inner performer with lengthy comments. The comments stopped when Sanghyun held up his fingers, counting down 3, 2, 1.

-K! Hollywood!

The entire audience shouted in unison.

Only then did Junhyung turn around and find Sanghyun laughing hysterically.

“Hey, you crazy……!”

The words ‘crazy bastard’ almost slipped out, but it was a difficult phrase to utter at the showcase venue. But Sanghyun had no such reservations.

“What, you crazy bastard.”

“Huh?!”

Junhyung was startled and looked around, but strangely, the fans didn’t react much. Sanghyun looked at Junhyung with pity and spoke into the microphone.

“As we have repeatedly said, we are not entertainers but rappers. Junhyung calls himself a rap player. We think everyone gathered here is a player who cannot even be compared to us in their respective fields. It’s just that we make music that is a little more exposed to the public.”

When promoting today’s event, I used the word ‘showcase’ to convey the meaning, but to be precise, today’s event wasn’t just a showcase.

It’s a party where people who like similar music gather.

Or a place to let friends listen to the music they made and ask, ‘Hey, how’s this? Isn’t it awesome?’

“So, I don’t want to wear an artificial image mask, and I don’t want to limit you to the position of fans. Aren’t we friends?”

At Sanghyun’s playful closing, a man wearing a neatly dressed white shirt shouted loudly. He was one of the people Moon Ji-yeon had sensed something interesting about.

“Where are you being so presumptuous, calling me a friend? How old are you?”

The audience burst into laughter at the playful and exaggerated tone.

He didn’t even rap once, but the atmosphere of the people changed quite a bit. It was because they felt that today’s performance was not a simple showcase, but music to be heard among friends.

At that moment, a cheerful beat began to play.

Minho, who was watching the atmosphere, quickly moved to the DJ booth and played the beat, judging it was the right moment.

As befitting his nickname of Woominhogu, Minho was innocent and passive in everything, but it was different when he entered the DJ booth. When performing the role of a DJ, he became an active and progressive stage maker, a transformation in Minho that occurred through his 888 Crew activities.

DJ. Disk Jockey.

Among the words Disk Jockey, the word jockey meant ‘driver.’ So, Minho was the driver who designed the direction of 888 Crew’s music.

As soon as they heard the beat, Sanghyun, Hwan, and Hayeon grabbed the microphone heads and stepped forward. They were the featured artists on the song ‘La Mancha,’ which opened the set under the driver’s command.

The beat of La Mancha harmonized the elegant harpsichord melody, unique to Spanish keyboard music, with a heavy, hardcore drum sound.

‘Huh?’

Sound experts among the agency people recognized the harpsichord and made puzzled expressions.

In the meantime, the 888 Crew often showed a preference for orchestral instruments. That was because the orchestral sound had grandeur, and that grandeur could create a different synergy effect when combined with intense yet raw hip-hop drums.

In fact, it was easy to find Korean hip-hop musicians who preferred orchestral sampling recently. Because of the 888 Crew.

But the harpsichord is a little different.

The harpsichord was an instrument that flourished in the 16th-18th centuries. As modern music began, an instrument called the piano, which played the role of a more versatile instrument, was born, and soon the piano replaced the harpsichord.

Of course, it cannot be said to be completely superior because the sounding mechanism is different, but the harpsichord was an instrument that could not express delicate nuances such as crescendo or diminuendo [gradual increase/decrease in volume].

The reason why the sharp and strong harpsichord was hardly used in the 19th century was here. It was revived when Baroque music became popular again in modern times and musicians became interested in historically informed performances.

But their doubts soon turned into admiration.

This was because the song title appeared late on the screen on the stage due to the unexpected start of the performance.

La Mancha.

“La Mancha……. Ha, this is really. I’m going crazy.”

Someone blurted out the thoughts in their heart.

It was that impressive.

They went to the showcase today with the prediction that 888 Crew’s album would have a significant impact on popular music.

But the 888 Crew was not very interested in the trends of popular music.

Their only interest was in hip-hop.

Only evolution ‘within hip-hop’.

Track 1 of Just For The Record, La Mancha.

La Mancha was the name of a real Spanish village where the story of Cervantes’ novel Don Quixote begins.

This was an instrument choice that metaphorically showed Don Quixote being so engrossed in noble chivalry stories (harpsichord instrument) that he went insane himself (heavy hardcore drums).

In simple terms, it meant that the 888 Crew was crazy about hip-hop, no matter what the reality was.

The 888 Crew were musicians who were recognized for having taken a step forward in terms of the avant-garde nature of their lyrics through the Bootleg series and Hip-hop the Vibe.

Greatly deviating from the development stage of existing Korean hip-hop, which rhymes with scholarly Chinese character words, active use of colloquial style, punchlines with double meanings, emphasis of messages using inversion, and even the exploration of consciousness shown while dealing with the theme of ‘money’.

They showed everything that could be done with lyrics.

But the 888 Crew said that all of that was basic and unofficial music, and presented JFTR.

And JFTR was arguing that rap music could be placed in the category of artistic interpretation. They were arguing that even the sampling source, which is the basis of rap, is an art that can be interpreted with the musician’s creative intention.

‘Could it be that the harpsichord also has the meaning of an unchanging social prejudice that does not weaken or strengthen?’

Those who went a little deeper were even thinking about that.

But the 888 Crew would not reveal these interpretations. The fact that they hide diverse and complex messages is only an intention and satisfaction as musicians.

The music must be enjoyable even if it is not interpreted, and the music itself must be complete. Music that is completed only when interpretation is accompanied is not proper music.

It only gives those who interpret it the fun of interpreting it in various categories.

It was a new belief they gained through Poetry and Rap, The Second Line.

With so many thoughts and ideas behind them, Sanghyun’s rap began.

I won’t say I was born for hip-hop

I still hope for a happy younger sibling, a pretty wife

I’m just throwing up a lot of things living inside me

I’m taking out one by one about my life

Unlike some agency staff who were deeply knowledgeable in music production, the audience did not find anything particularly special in the sound of La Mancha.

Only a few who listened carefully thought that it didn’t sound like a piano. And some mistook it for an organ or a pump organ.

What they were paying attention to was not the sound of the instrument. It was Sanghyun’s rap. More precisely, it was the feeling that Sanghyun’s rap had a different vibe than usual.

Vibe Right in the up and down voice

Highlight is now feeling a bit of obsession

Leaving Gwangju, now Don Quixote of Seoul City

My lyrics are toxic and difficult, they say there is no antidote

It was impossible to define a rapper’s rap style in one sentence, and that was the same for Sanghyun. But there were two things that never changed while Sanghyun was rapping.

First, his lyrics delivery was so excellent that the lyrics were heard clearly unless he intentionally cut off the sound. Therefore, Sanghyun was not the type to create a flow by inducing pronunciation defects or losses.

Second, it was a style of capturing the sound. There was no case of air flowing during the rap, so it gave a dry feeling at first glance.

< Verse 29. Just For The Record > end

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