The Rap Star [EN]: Chapter 230

< Verse 36. No Color >

Verse 36. No Color

“The second song is called ‘Whipping.’”

Sanghyun’s low voice was met with cheers from the international travelers and his friends at Cycadellic Records, who had grown close to him.

Those cheering for Sanghyun made up just under half of the crowd. The other half were either genuinely uninterested in rap or deliberately hiding their reactions, arms crossed.

At first, he felt resentful towards these people. But now, he didn’t care.

Not caring didn’t mean he was ignoring their reactions, but rather that he had begun to understand their behavior.

Sanghyun, habitually scanning the audience, gave a signal, and the beat dropped, followed immediately by his rap.

The rapping, which benefited from a high tone but also exhibited rich highs and lows due to its raw energy, began to resonate through the speakers.

“Oh…!”

The members of Cycadellic Records, hearing Sanghyun’s stage performance for the first time today, exclaimed in admiration once again.

“This is the song we recorded yesterday, right? It’s even better live?”

“I know, right.”

The powerful delivery that Sanghyun possessed didn’t diminish even when he rapped in a different language.

The lyrics, piercing through the humid air of the club, felt as if they were popping out of his mouth, carving letters in the air, and then entering the ears again.

A feeling of watching even while listening.

This was one of Sanghyun’s greatest strengths.

Put the word, stir with a flow, which is innate

Groove World, Hard beat, Mix, I be hated.

The fact that the lyrics were perfectly conveyed was the best weapon for a rapper. But sometimes, it could also be a disadvantage.

Because if the lyrics were childish or their meaning was unclear, it could hinder immersion.

However, this was not the case for Sanghyun.

“’Whipping,’ that’s awesome?”

“Right? Even though it’s not his native language, his vocabulary range is strangely wide.”

The word ‘Whipping’ meant ‘to whip cream,’ but it also meant ‘to punish with a whip.’

In other words, this song was a rap that implied the double meaning of ‘whipping’ using words, flow, groove, and beat as ingredients.

Sanghyun’s rap continued calmly but passionately.

Sanghyun on stage was composed, but a strong emotion was conveyed to the listeners, giving a sense of raw passion.

-Damn it!

-Straight up!

When the three-song performance ended, reactions such as ‘amazing’ and ‘awesome’ burst out.

The people who were cheering the loudest were the members of Cycadellic Records, but they weren’t the only ones.

Sanghyun finished his first LA club performance with a positive response and felt proud.

Before, no matter how hard he rapped, the majority remained silent, and even those who thought it was good would often fall silent along with them.

But now, he had quite reliable friends.

No, more importantly, he had clearly realized how to rap in LA.

It wasn’t just that having close friends was causing a gradual positive response to Sanghyun’s rap. It was thanks to lowering the psychological barriers he had unknowingly been putting up while associating with the Cycadellic people.

***

“Five. Can you show me this session? If I create a bassline that matches the drum loop and put it in the back, it would be the perfect beat I’ve been dreaming of.”

“What about the current bass?”

“I’m going to take it out. It’s too jazzy right now.”

“This was made in Korea, so there probably isn’t a session save? Wait. You use Nuendo [a digital audio workstation], right?”

Sanghyun tried to sketch something out using Mel’s computer, but Mel’s computer didn’t have enough virtual instruments (VSTs) [software plugins that emulate the sounds of real instruments].

Of course, Sanghyun’s cloud storage had virtual instrument samples backed up, but with Compton’s ridiculously slow internet speed, it would take two days to download over 4GB of VSTs.

‘There’s bound to be a power outage at least once during that time.’

Sanghyun originally never went to the hood areas of Compton.

However, as he hung out with the Cycadellic Records crew, he naturally frequented Compton more often, and Sanghyun realized that he had a strange prejudice.

It wasn’t that Compton wasn’t dangerous. There were indeed gangsters who threatened passersby and stole their shoes and wallets.

But anyway, this was also a place where people lived. If there were bad guys, there were also good guys. As it is everywhere.

Perhaps Sanghyun had been giving all the people in the ‘hood area’ the same look all along.

‘Still, the scale of the bad guys here is too much.’

Sanghyun made such a thought and promised Mel that he would back up the VSTs on a USB drive and bring them soon.

And then the work started again. Sanghyun was writing feature verses for Westrun and Mel’s mixtape.

Westrun and Mel were quite well-known in Compton.

Westrun was a musician who released a mixtape with an enlightening message called ‘Drug me down’ at the age of 17 and sold 2,000 albums, and Mel was a musician who had showcased quite a few works with top-notch producing and rapping, although he had not officially released a mixtape.

There were quite a few people who were looking forward to the duo’s album.

Sanghyun was co-producing this entire album with Mel and was also planning to participate in three songs as a featured artist.

“Wassup! Workaholics, are you guys eating?”

“Five is too diligent. He doesn’t do marijuana, and he doesn’t meet women. What does he live for? Are you gay?”

“There are no gays in Asians.”

“What nonsense is that? Five, is it true?”

The remaining members of Cycadellic Records entered the studio where Westrun, Mel, and Sanghyun were working.

They were Rude, Neovegace, and Drone. Sanghyun greeted them happily.

They act like they came to hang out, but in fact, they had all been working in the factory district in the southeast of downtown. Their rapping skills weren’t amazing, but they all lived their lives with passion and nurtured their dreams.

Sanghyun was forming new relationships in LA, which he had only thought of as a starting point for advancing into the United States.

Kirk Kim, the owner of Cycadellic Records, had been trying to recruit Sanghyun, who was introduced to him through Westrun. He had formally offered Sanghyun a spot on their label.

The fact that they were both Korean wasn’t the only reason, but the bigger reason was that he liked Sanghyun’s music.

However, Sanghyun neither rejected nor accepted the offer.

He didn’t become an official member, but he became a guest rapper and producer and began to build friendships with the members of Cycadellic.

The first thing Sanghyun did after starting to work with Cycadellic Records was to release the beats he had collected.

Combining what he made in Korea and what he made in LA, the number had already exceeded 40.

“Five. Can I use this? I want to put it on my mixtape.”

“Shut your mouth. I already called dibs on this. Five agreed to feature on it!”

They couldn’t help but admire the quantity and quality of the work Sanghyun had produced.

And then they started calling Sanghyun Fire, saying that Five’s ‘v’ now looks like an ‘r.’ Fire meant a person burning with enthusiasm.

The meeting between Sanghyun and Cycadellic Records was a perfect win-win situation. It began to create a tremendous synergy effect for both of them.

First of all, Sanghyun was able to get an opportunity to showcase his music.

Cycadellic Records was a label with very high recognition and a positive image in the LA scene. And Sanghyun was able to change his surrounding connections to a positive perspective by becoming close with this label.

Thanks to this, he was able to get a pretty good response when he performed these days, and Sanghyun’s name was being mentioned among LA rappers. In the way of, ‘Have you heard of this Asian rapper named Five? He’s amazing?’

Of course, in absolute numbers, there were still more people who looked at him with prejudice.

If Sanghyun got an opportunity to change perceptions, Cycadellic Records was able to fill the void of a definite main producer through their meeting with Sanghyun.

Cycadellic Records currently did not have a suitable producer.

As Cycadellic Records played the role of a ‘stepping stone’ for LA artists, Kirk Kim would let go of rappers and producers too easily once they were able to advance to mainstream labels.

Because of this, after letting go of two producers about four months ago, they had not yet been able to fill the void. But now it was solved thanks to Sanghyun.

In this way, the meeting between Sanghyun and Cycadellic was a meeting that satisfied everyone.

‘Cycadellic Records is better than Bebo Label?’

Except for Bebo, who had been sulking for days.

Time passed in an instant. It was only a two-week period, but it was a very fulfilling time for Sanghyun.

And finally, the morning of Compton Black Block, a large-scale hip-hop festival in LA, dawned.

***

Sanghyun’s original thought was that festivals were similar no matter which country they were held in.

Food stalls, numerous tourists, and cheerful songs echoing in the streets.

This was the case with some of the festivals that Sanghyun had toured around the United States, and this was also the case with the festivals he had seen in Korea.

But Compton Black Block was not.

It was on a different level from ordinary festivals in that the whole world was covered in hip-hop.

In Korea, when you use the word ‘hip-hop,’ it is often replaced with the word ‘rap,’ but originally, rap was a sub-element of hip-hop, one of the four elements.

DJing, MCing [rapping], B-Boying [breakdancing], Graffiti. Beatboxing, which imitates DJing with the mouth, is sometimes added.

Anyway, these four were the four elements of hip-hop, and MCing was just called rap.

Therefore, the scenery that fills Compton today is a multitude of hip-hop acts such as dancing, singing, rapping, and graffiti.

“Oh, that’s awesome?”

Westrun watched a B-boying crew and liked it like a child. He said his brother was a street dancer.

The Cycadellic Records members, Bebo, and Sanghyun roamed Black Street in Compton. There were many things to see, and there were many great street musicians.

Normally, the combined ratio of white people and Asians in Compton was less than 5%, but today was an exception. There were a lot of people living in LA or tourists from other places.

“Uh…? Oh, oppa [an honorific term used by females to address older brothers or male friends]. Lee Sanghyun! Isn’t that Lee Sanghyun over there?”

“No way… Oh?!”

A small commotion broke out when a Korean couple who had come to travel recognized Sanghyun.

When Sanghyun took pictures with them and gave them autographs, the two men and women were overjoyed, and the Cycadellic Records members who saw the scene looked surprised.

They were talking in Korean that they couldn’t understand, but the expressions and actions they showed were the reactions that came out when they met a great star.

< Verse 36. No Color > end

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