Chapter 22
Chapter 22
Naturally, I had not told them to just wait there of my own free will.
Big Joe had whispered, “Kill him,” from beside me, so I had no choice but to say it again.
“Haaah...”
I let out a long sigh inside the room.
What if people ended up getting an even worse impression of Shotgun at this rate?
Ever since I was little, my parents had always emphasized manners, saying that my roots were in Korea, the Eastern nation of courtesy.
...Whatever.
There was no point worrying about it now.
First, I had something I needed to do.
I had to decide what kind of beat I was going to lay down for J-Rackz.
While I was thinking, I unconsciously placed a hand on the CDJ jog wheel.
But why am I so good at this already?
It had only been a short while since I first learned how to work a jog wheel by watching YouTube videos.
Now my hands moved before I even had to look.
The moment I heard it, I could lock in the BPM match by ear, and I cut the EQ reflexively without even needing to think.
Is this all thanks to the fear-of-death study method?
This whole experience had made me realize that when a person was pushed to the extreme, the brain went into overdrive and learning efficiency rose to an abnormal degree.
...This is such a cheat.
As my hands moved, I thought of J-Rackz.
His style was to pour out that low-mid tone drawn up from deep in his chest.
His delivery had punch because he hit the first syllable exactly on the beat with obsessive precision.
For J-Rackz, something dark and heavy suited him better than anything melodic.
The kind where the 808 dug into the floor.
It had to be different in texture from what I had laid down for Lil D.
Then suddenly—
I think that one would fit him perfectly.
I opened my laptop.
The last songs I had made during my self-taught period.
I had gone to South LA with secondhand gear because I had wanted a clean break from music, remember?
The day before that, I had gathered only the tracks I liked most and organized them into one list.
Nine songs.
I had never let anyone hear them.
They were just for my own satisfaction.
Maybe that was why most of them were fairly difficult.
I had not cared at all about commercial appeal.
I had only put in the sounds I wanted to hear.
They were not all hip-hop beats, either.
There was ambient, electronica, boom bap, jazz hip-hop, even experimental glitch.
I had been heavily influenced by DJ Cabin.
The very reason I had started music, and the DJ-producer I respected most.
Trap, ambient, jazz, and house could all coexist on one album, yet the whole thing still flowed like a single narrative.
He was the kind of producer who erased the boundaries between genres.
The first time I bought a MIDI keyboard, and the first time I installed FL Studio, had both come after listening to one of Cabin’s mixtapes.
I looked down the list of all nine file names.
Then I clicked Track 3.
Boom... boom-boom...
A heavy 808 sank to the floor.
Over it rose a sharply distorted synth.
The texture was almost industrial.
A metallic, clashing texture spread underneath, and beneath that, low-register chords settled in with an uneasy tension.
Yeah. This is the one.
If J-Rackz’s heavy low voice rode over this beat—
his style of striking each syllable down on the beat would collide with the beat’s sharp texture and create friction.
If the beat I had laid under Lil D had been the kind that gave space to the rapper, this beat was the kind that picked a fight with the rapper.
My friend J-Rackz was not the kind to avoid a fight.
If anything, the harder the beat pushed, the harder he spat back.
It might feel a little difficult at first, but if he pulls it off, it’ll be insane.
I adjusted the EQ slightly.
I cut the low end a little more and made room in the midrange.
Okay. Let’s go with this.
Then I looked at the other eight songs.
I had skimmed through them all when I opened the folder earlier, and hearing them again after so long, they were better than I had expected.
Of course, they were not commercial tracks.
They were not listener-friendly, either.
But suddenly, a thought crossed my mind.
Maybe I should upload them while I’m at it.
I opened SoundCloud.
The account creation page appeared.
[Username:]
What should I use?
I could not be bothered to think too hard.
[asd1234]
—This username is already taken.
[asd1235]
—This username is already taken.
[asd1236]
—This username is available.
Good enough.
I did not even upload a profile picture.
I left the bio blank too.
A hollow, empty account with nothing in it.
I dragged eight tracks into the upload window.
“...”
These were things I had been tinkering with alone since elementary school.
In my room, late at night, without anyone knowing.
And now those sounds were about to go out into the world.
Well, nobody’s going to listen anyway.
I pressed Enter.
Tap!
In front of The Vault.
The line was long enough to wrap around the block.
“I heard J-Rackz personally denied the rumor.”
“The one about him crying and dropping to his knees?”
“Yeah. He flat-out said it wasn’t true.”
The man standing beside them clicked his tongue.
“Nigga, I told you not to make such a big deal out of it. If J-Rackz were that kind of guy, he never would’ve become the king of the underground in the first place.”
“But the closed-door training part was real, right?”
“Yeah, seems like it’s true he got some kind of feedback from Shotgun. But he said he didn’t kneel.”
“Crying and dropping to his knees, my ass.”
A voice cut in from behind them.
“On my mama, the exaggeration is crazy. This neighborhood’s always been like that. Something said in the morning comes back by evening inflated to three times the size.”
The line started moving.
People were drawn inside one by one.
“But I heard there’s supposed to be some kind of special event for this comeback stage?”
People still did not know.
They had no idea who was going to step into the DJ booth tonight.
They did not even know that two DJ booths had been set up, one on each side.
But the title of J-Rackz’s comeback alone was enough to fill The Vault.
Security checks at the entrance were finished, and people poured onto the floor.
There was a DJ booth on each side of the stage.
Normally there was only one set on one side, so with two of them now facing each other, murmurs spread among the audience.
“Why are there two DJ booths?”
“Is it a battle?”
“This is gonna be good.”
The show began.
After a few opening rappers heated up the stage, the lights went out.
A voice rang out in the darkness.
“The Vault, it’s been a while.”
Waaaaaaaah—!
The lights burst on, and J-Rackz stood in the center of the stage.
“I’ve prepared something different for you tonight. Two DJs are each going to lay down a beat, and I’m going to spit live over both of them.”
And then—
“First, Mike B, who’s been with me for the past three years!”
From the left booth, Mike B raised both hands high.
Cheers exploded.
There was no one in The Vault who did not know Mike B.
“And next, the second DJ is...”
The light came on over the booth to the right.
Sunglasses gleamed in the light.
And then that familiar straight-lined, expressionless mouth.
“...SHOTGUN?!”
The Vault lost its mind.
“No way! It’s Shotgun!”
“Nah! He came in sunglasses today instead of a helmet!”
“Still can’t see shit because of the smoke, damn it!”
The audience began to go wild.
The monster who had become the talk of the scene through the recent diss war was standing in the DJ booth right now.
“Aight! Mike B first!”
J-Rackz extended a hand toward the left booth.
Mike B pushed up the fader.
Boom, boom-boom—
A trap beat dropped.
I know everything about J-Rackz.
Mike B was completely confident.
He knew where J-Rackz caught his breath, where he stretched his syllables, where he exploded with volume.
Three whole years.
Hundreds of stages together.
That time was all there.
“YOOOOO!”
“Mike B is killing it!”
“As expected, nobody can touch him when it comes to DJing!”
J-Rackz’s verse ran precisely across the beat.
It was a flawless performance.
“Aight! Next!”
After finishing the first stage, J-Rackz pointed to the right.
“SHOTGUN! Drop the damn beat already!”
Shotgun’s hand came down onto the CDJ.
The cue point was set.
The fader rose.
Boom... boom-boom...
It was different from the intro.
If Mike B’s beat had been orthodox trap, this was something else entirely.
The 808 burrowed into the floor, while above it rode a metallic clashing texture.
J-Rackz closed his eyes.
This beat...
When he had first received the file and listened to it, honestly, it had been hard to digest.
It was too different in texture from the kind of beat he usually rode.
So in the first verse, he had stumbled.
He had tried to fit his syllables onto the beat, but the beat felt like it was pushing him away.
But from the second verse onward, something changed.
Once he started pushing back harder against the beat’s friction, that collision turned into energy.
By the third verse, he was practically fighting the beat.
And that fight gave him an insane rush.
It was the same now.
J-Rackz fired off the opening line.
His heavy, solid low tone slammed against the metallic texture of the beat.
“What the hell? That beat’s totally different from Mike B’s.”
“That’s not all. J-Rackz feels different too.”
“He’s completely different from how he sounded over Mike B’s set!”
The harder the beat pushed, the harder J-Rackz pushed back.
Neither gave ground.
The pressure created by that collision shook the floor.
“SHEEEESH!”
“This is insane!”
“Shotgun brought a murderous beat tonight!”
From the left booth, Mike B stood there with his arms crossed, watching.
At first, he had been relaxed.
Because the beat was difficult, he had assumed J-Rackz would not be able to digest it.
But the deeper they got into the set, the more J-Rackz seemed to awaken.
...What the hell is that?
J-Rackz over the beat Mike B had laid down had been good too.
That much was certain.
But what he’s doing now...
A beastlike energy was erupting out of him—something that had never appeared in the usual J-Rackz.
Shotgun’s beat was drawing it out.
And more than anything—
...His DJ performance looks even better than it did at Soundwave. How can someone improve this fast?
Mike B’s gaze began to stay fixed on Shotgun’s hands.
The way he pushed up the crossfader while simultaneously shaving off the EQ highs.
Even the setup is different.
Mike B used fixed cue points matched to a predetermined set list.
It was safe, but not flexible.
If the rapper changed the verse on the fly, it was hard to respond.
Shotgun’s cue points were fluid.
They were designed so he could adjust the beat in real time to match the rapper’s breathing.
If you can do that without making mistakes...
Then you had to have memorized the entire structure of the beat.
You had to know the connection points of every single bar so that no matter where you cut, it would flow naturally into the next.
Mike B’s head began to bob.
Before he even realized it, he was moving to the beat himself.
Shit.
He had no choice but to admit it.
That was not a realm he could reach.
A mad talent beyond compare.
The moment he realized it—
Thump—
Mike B raised a thumbs-up toward the DJ booth opposite him.
J-Rackz, your producer won.
The final verse ended.
The floor exploded.
“On God! This is legendary!”
“Did you hear J-Rackz over Shotgun’s beat?! That was insane!”
J-Rackz lowered the mic.
Breathing hard, he turned to look behind him.
The DJ booth on the right.
What did you think, Shotgun?
The guy who had once listened to a single verse in the studio and told him to his face to stop imitating others.
The guy who was cold, direct, and never gave praise.
That same guy was meeting his eyes now.
And Shotgun—no, Park Geon—looked at J-Rackz and thought:
You were seriously incredible tonight...
It was nothing like the last time he had seen him in the studio.
He had not just regained his own style; he had pulled it up to a whole new level.
Yeah. This is the feeling I wanted, J-Rackz!
He wanted to shout it.
Hey, you were fucking amazing!
That was insane!
You’re the best!
I love you, my friend!
But the floor was packed with hood crowds.
There were gang members everywhere.
Big Joe was looking down from the VIP section.
Ah.
At that moment, he remembered how Mike B had given him a thumbs-up during the DJ set.
Thump—
So he did the same thing.
Toward J-Rackz on the stage.
“...”
J-Rackz saw it.
The hand holding the mic dropped slack.
The days of closed-door training passed through his mind like a lantern carousel.
The mornings he freestyled alone in an empty room.
The nights he wrote three hundred verses and threw away more than half of them.
The dawns when he erased, wrote again, and erased again.
Standing in front of the mic in an empty room, he had asked himself:
Why do I rap?
To beat Lil D?
To protect the throne?
No.
To prove myself.
After realizing that, everything had changed.
His flow had changed, his lyrics had changed, and his attitude on stage had changed.
The thing that had created that change was a single sentence from Shotgun.
“Why are you copying him?”
That cold feedback had felt like a bucket of ice water dumped over him, but that one line had given him direction.
And now—
Shotgun was giving him a thumbs-up.
“Shit...”
His eyes burned.
He tried to hold it back, but he could not.
In the end, he wiped at his eyes with his forearm.
Quickly, as if trying not to get caught.
But it was already too late.
“OHHHHH! Did you see that?! Did you see it?!”
“The king is crying!”
“See?! I told you the rumor was true!”
“Who said it wasn’t true?! What did I tell you!”
“The guy who said it wasn’t true in line earlier, get out here!”
“If the rumor’s true, doesn’t that mean he really did kneel too?!”
“No way he’s about to kneel right now too, is he?!”
J-Rackz had only bent forward while wiping his eyes, but from the audience, it looked as if he might be dropping to his knees.
“Look over there!”
“See? Rumors never lie!”
“Now even J-Rackz won’t be able to deny it! He showed everybody with their own eyes!”
“...What?”
Lil D frowned hard.
Dustin waved both hands as he emphasized it.
“I’m telling you, it’s true! Shotgun gave J-Rackz a thumbs-up! Like this! Bam!”
Jamal nodded too.
“It’s true.”
Lil D stared blankly up at the ceiling.
He had that kind of reaction too?
Shotgun was the kind of guy who almost never showed emotion.
Lil D had thought a nod was the limit.
A thumbs-up.
If that ranked above a nod, then—
...J-Rackz must really have changed that much.
He bit his lip.
I can’t just sit still either.
Work on the album was in full swing.
He had thought it was already good enough, but now he realized it was still far from enough.
I’m pouring everything I have into this album.
From that day on, he devoted himself entirely to practice.
Just as J-Rackz had gone into closed-door training, Lil D shut himself inside the studio and barely came out.
The butterfly effect created by Park Geon’s unintentional thumbs-up.
But as a result, Lil D’s album kept getting better and better in quality.
Personally, Jamal is the one who scares me the most.
Dustin is huge and loud, but he has a human side to him.
Lil D is prideful and hot-tempered, but sometimes he has these unexpected sides, like honestly confessing that he drives a leased car or buying me clothes.
Of course, both of them are gang members, so they’re scary.
But little by little... how do I put it...
...No, what do you mean little by little? What the hell am I even thinking?
Anyway.
Jamal was different.
I could never tell what he was thinking.
A thin frame. A teardrop tattoo. The grip of a gun sticking out from his back pocket.
He spoke in a low voice that was hard to catch, and his expression barely ever changed.
And yet...
“Wassup.”
That same Jamal was standing right in front of me now.
“I’ve been thinking things over on my own.”
Then he casually slipped a hand into his back pocket.
Eeeek!
That one movement alone made me freak out inside, but thankfully, what came out was just his phone.
“Right now Dustin’s acting as your bodyguard.”
“...”
“But I’m not built like Dustin, and it’s not like I can carry a gun around every time. You know how it is—concert venues and festivals have security checks. So...”
So?
What is it? Why are you dragging this out...?
“I’ll be your manager.”
Fuck.
“Don’t worry. I took a business administration class my freshman year in college.”
What do you mean, college?!
Jamal went to college?
!
Jamal’s hand went to his back pocket again.
I kept getting startled every time he did that, but this time what came out was a black card.
“Big Joe says he’s taking you somewhere next week, just the two of you. He says it’s an important occasion, so you need to get matching suits.”
...Fuck.