Chapter 31
Chapter 31
The call ended.
“Why? What was it about?”
Aela lowered her phone and answered.
“A feature offer. From Shotgun.”
“...That Crips producer we saw at the listening party?”
Aela rested her head against the sofa.
The echo of the call still lingered in her ears.
It had been short.
He had stated his business and hung up.
He had asked a world-famous pop star to feature on a song, yet there had been no explanation, no persuasion, and no flattery.
Nothing strange about that. ...He was like that that day, too.
She remembered the listening party.
The expressionless face behind the sunglasses.
Even when industry heavyweights handed him their business cards, he had simply accepted them without saying a word.
He had not smiled once throughout the entire party.
Not during the toasts, not while shaking hands, and not when anyone spoke to him.
I wanted to talk to him.
That day, Aela had been waiting for the right moment to approach Shotgun first.
As a producer, she had more than a few things she wanted to ask him.
The beat of the diss track had been aggressive, while [DRIVE] was as smooth as driving down a highway in the middle of the night.
Their spectrums were so different that it was hard to believe the same person had produced both.
Is he a hip-hop producer who also has a sense for pop, or does he simply not recognize genre boundaries at all?
That was what she wanted to know.
Even so, she had ultimately been unable to approach him...
Crips.
Shotgun’s background.
On top of that, she had recently heard that he had officially signed an exclusive contract with a Crips-affiliated label.
Aela was from Orlando.
She had been born into a middle-class family, developed her voice in a church choir, and entered the industry after a label noticed her YouTube cover videos.
She was someone who had never once smelled the streets.
That was why she had been unable to approach him so readily, and all she had managed to do near the end of the party was ask for his number.
Of course, she had not contacted him even once afterward.
...Because she was scared!
“To give you my conclusion first, I don’t think you should do it.”
“Why?”
“Shotgun is still a rookie. What official work does he have as a producer? Just [DRIVE].”
And above all—
“Shotgun is a hip-hop producer. Beatmaking, trap, boom bap. It’s all hip-hop. Do you really think he can produce something that suits you?”
It was not entirely unheard of for a hip-hop producer to handle vocal production for a pop artist, but with a career as short as Shotgun’s, he would ordinarily have been difficult to even consider as a candidate.
He’s not wrong.
Aela knew that too.
The approaches of hip-hop producers and pop producers were clearly different.
A rapper rode the beat, while a vocalist swam between the beat and the melody.
When you worked with a producer who did not understand that difference, the result was something awkward, with the vocals either buried beneath the beat or floating weightlessly above it.
But...
Aela tucked her long hair behind her ear and said,
“Remember the demo package we heard last month? The one three Billboard producers sent us.”
“Of course. They were all good.”
“They were.”
Aela nodded.
“But they were all the same.”
“...”
“Similar tempos, similar chord progressions, similar drops. They’re good at wrapping my vocals up beautifully, but that’s all. Even if you hid the producers’ names, I wouldn’t be able to tell them apart.”
“...”
“Honestly, I was a little bored.”
“Aela, hold on. Don’t make an emotional decision. At least listen to the demo first—”
“It’s under embargo.”
Her manager, Nick, raised his voice.
“...What? Exactly! You’re saying you’ll do it without even hearing the song. Does that make any sense?”
Aela smiled sweetly.
It was a warm smile reminiscent of spring.
“Shut the fuck up, Nick.”
“...”
“Before I cut you off completely.”
“Ah. Okay.”
“But I’m not going to answer him right away.”
“...Why?”
Aela smiled sweetly once again.
“I’ll look too easy.”
I stared blankly at my phone screen.
The royalty statement for [DRIVE].
$741,873.21
My hands were shaking. Seriously.
The streaming revenue generated across the various platforms.
The distribution fees were deducted, then the label’s share, and the remainder went to the artist side.
Since Lil D and I split the publishing fifty-fifty...
Wow.
This was insane.
This much money from a single song I made?
When [DRIVE] briefly reached No. 4 on the Billboard chart, I had tried to play it cool.
I had told myself it was because of the attention surrounding the diss battle, not because of my own ability.
But $740,000 did not allow for objective self-assessment.
...Am I actually a genius?
First, calm down.
The first thing I did—
My laptop was secondhand twice over.
Whenever I ran FL Studio, the fan sounded like a jet engine, and rendering took thirty minutes at a time.
Aight, let’s do this.
So I immediately splurged on the latest laptop.
The second thing I searched for was soundproofing material.
Upgrade my equipment, add soundproofing...
Then, suddenly, a voice appeared in my head.
—Geon, where did you get this money?
What if I suddenly started throwing money around?
Slowly. Let’s take this slowly.
Changing everything at once would raise suspicions.
I should not do it all at once. Just little by little.
I’ll buy things bit by bit and say I bought them with my trainee lawyer salary. Ah, while I’m at it...
I remembered all the years my parents had spent raising Yul and me while running Gohyangmiga.
Since I was already going to tell them I had received my first paycheck as a trainee lawyer, I wanted to give them gifts.
And so, the next day.
“Yul.”
Yul was lying facedown on the sofa, looking at her phone.
“Here.”
I held out an envelope.
Yul blinked as she accepted it, then looked inside.
“...Oppa? What’s this?”
“To celebrate my first paycheck.”
Five hundred dollars.
It was quite a lot of money for a high school student.
“R-Really?”
“Why not? It’s not like I can’t give it to you. So study even harder.”
“Really? You mean it? No taking it back? Yeeeeeh! I’m going to study right now!”
Yul ran toward her room, then stopped at the door and turned around.
“I’ll work hard and make sure I become just like you, Oppa!”
“...?”
...Like me?
Strangely, I could not think of anything to say.
This time, I headed to Gohyangmiga, the restaurant where my parents were.
It was a quiet period just after the dinner rush had ended.
“I got my first paycheck.”
I handed over the envelope.
My father accepted it.
When he looked inside, his eyes widened.
“I-Isn’t this too much? And if you’re still a trainee, your salary can’t be that high...”
Actually, the salary itself was pretty high.
The rancher, who might decide to slaughter me at any moment, was feeding me generously.
“Come on, it’s to celebrate my first paycheck. And even if I’m still a trainee, there’s a reason lawyers are lawyers.”
My mother’s nose reddened.
“Our Geon is already giving us things like this...”
“Don’t cry, honey.”
“...Who’s crying? I’m just proud of him.”
Ah, and—
I had something else for my father.
“I also started working as legal counsel for a place called LK Records.”
“What?! Isn’t that the label Lil D belongs to?”
LK Records had not even been around for very long, so I had no idea how he knew that.
Anyway, I took out what I had prepared in advance.
The CD sleeve for the [DRIVE] single.
On the back was an autograph written in pen.
[Lil Dunk]
“...!”
My father’s eyes went wide.
“Lil D’s autograph?!”
“Yes. I asked him for one while I was doing some legal work for the label, and he signed it for me.”
“Yoooooo!”
My father turned the CD this way and that.
He even held it up to the light.
Then he started humming the song.
“SHOTGUN TO YOUR...”
At that moment.
My mother glared murderously at him from the side.
“N-No, FACE. FACE, I mean. Not the other one.”
Two diss tracks with only the final word different.
...I immediately understood the situation.
“Ah, Geon. By the way, if it’s LK Records, isn’t Shotgun there too?”
“...”
“Have you ever seen his face? What’s he like?”
Right here.
You’re looking at him right now.
How many things am I working on right now?
Lil D’s album.
[WHEN I WAKE UP].
My trainee lawyer period at Morrison & Reed.
I folded my fingers one by one and stopped at three.
There was definitely something else.
What was it?
Lying in bed, I searched my memory.
“Ah!”
ASD.
I had sent feedback to B.I.G. and Slipknot, but after receiving no further contact from either of them, I had completely forgotten about it.
Wow, since nobody’s chasing me for this one, I actually forgot about it.
I hurriedly opened my inbox.
There was an email waiting for me.
It had already arrived several days ago.
What was strange, however, was that it was neither from B.I.G. nor Slipknot.
Who the hell is Deliveryman?
I read the message.
[B.I.G. and Slipknot said they’re not doing it. They told me to send you a demo, so I’m sending one. Just so you know, I’m not a rapper. I’m just a delivery guy.]
They said they’re not doing it?
After what the rancher had said, this was another blow to my pride.
Do you assholes have any idea how good this beat is?!
I put in my earphones.
I pressed play on the attached demo.
...Why is the sound quality this bad?
It had definitely been recorded with a smartphone’s built-in microphone.
He must have recorded it inside a car, because now and then, I could hear other cars passing by.
But—
“...”
By the time eight bars had passed, I had closed my eyes.
By the time sixteen bars had passed, my head had started bobbing.
Even through the garbage sound quality, the texture of his voice punched through.
He had a way of inserting his voice into the gaps where the beat swayed.
Even the lyrics were good.
The story of a man who loaded packages into his trunk, made forty-minute round-trip deliveries, and rapped alone behind a gas station.
There was no pretense.
Is this guy Korean too?
No. Don’t let your guard down.
No matter what, he was a Blood gangster.
For a moment, I had almost felt a sense of kinship just because we were both Korean.
He really is good, though.
He lived up to his rap name.
Every syllable arrived clearly in the listener’s ears, as though he were delivering them personally.
...Hold on.
That FEEL I had gotten when I first heard Lil D’s song.
Back then, I had thought it would be good to feature someone with clear, precise delivery rap as a contrast to Lil D’s groove...
...For now, let’s just focus on listening.
Still, there were a few disappointing parts.
He clearly understood the beat’s structure, but something felt slightly off in the details.
I wrote out my feedback.
The method was not much different from before.
Even I don’t know what the hell I mean after writing this.
This was really difficult.
Putting a feeling into words.
It’ll probably come back tomorrow at the earliest. Maybe the day after.
I stretched.
I should hurry up, shower, and go to sleep.
But when I came back after my shower—
“?”
There was already an email waiting for me.
It had only been about thirty minutes since I sent mine.
[I recorded it again with your feedback applied. Please check it.]
...What?
I opened the file.
Play.
Oh. Does this guy actually understand my feedback?
The result showed that he had understood my feedback with remarkable accuracy.
It was noticeably better than before.
This time, however, he seemed to have recorded it in a bathroom stall, because there were some disgusting sounds midway through. Regardless, the result far exceeded my expectations.
Wow. This is insane.
At that moment, suddenly—
I remembered what the rancher had said while laughing loudly.
He said I could do whatever I wanted with ASD. Said they were experimental tracks he wouldn’t even be able to use.
Those words...
He might end up regretting them.
The session with Aela had been scheduled for the following week.
Today was the day Nova arrived at Hoover Studio.
He was recording his verse for [WHEN I WAKE UP].
Following J-Rax’s guide rap, his voice would be laid over Little K’s posthumous work.
Creeeak—
The studio door opened.
Nova stepped inside, then flinched.
“...Karvin?”
His manager’s eyes also widened behind him.
“What is...”
Their gazes moved back and forth between Karvin and Shotgun.
No one had told them Karvin would be here.
Wait. Shotgun was working with Karvin?
Rumors had been circulating in the industry that DJ Karvin was making a comeback.
But who would have guessed that comeback was connected to Shotgun?
Is this the song?
The song he was about to record.
The feature he had flown in for without even knowing the title because of the embargo.
“I’ll explain later.”
Shotgun’s low voice cut him off.
“Let’s start right away.”
“...Uh, y-yeah. We should.”
Nova immediately closed his mouth and entered the booth.
He put on the headphones and stood in front of the microphone.
After taking one breath, he began delivering his verse.
Hmm.
Karvin listened with his arms crossed.
The verse passed, the hook came in, and the bridge flowed by.
Good.
As expected from a rapper whose strength was emotional storytelling, he was excellent at steadily raising the emotional intensity from the middle of the verse onward.
But.
During the section where he stacked his rhymes, his breathing timing was slightly off.
Because he took a breath one beat too early, the weight meant to land on the first syllable of the next line was dispersed.
It was not a particularly noticeable mistake.
Most listeners would not even catch it.
It would’ve hit much harder if he’d held out for just one more beat.
Then came the transition immediately before the bridge.
During the two-bar gap where the beat briefly dropped out, Nova filled the space by drawing out his notes, but the way he did so felt habitual.
He had used a similar pattern on his previous album.
At that moment, Karvin noticed Shotgun staring at the monitor beside him.
His eyes were fixed on the waveform, while one finger tapped repeatedly against a certain spot.
That section.
It was the section with the mistimed breath.
Shit, Shotgun noticed the same thing. Did he catch the second issue too?
Shotgun’s finger moved to another spot on the waveform.
The transition before the bridge.
Damn!
Karvin shuddered.
He caught both of them.
Meanwhile, Park Geon was thinking—
Why are there spit stains splattered here? Did the last person who used this thing scream at it or something...?
He was wiping stains off the monitor.
A little while later.
The recording ended.
Shotgun pressed the intercom button and spoke.
“The flow is good overall, but...”
Karvin pricked up his ears.
He was curious how Shotgun would explain the two areas he himself had noticed.
“Your breathing gets a little fast near the end of the verse, right? Because of that, the next bar loses some of its weight. I think it’d be better if you made it feel fuller.”
Oh. He pointed out the first issue.
Karvin nodded.
But then Shotgun continued.
“And you know that empty space right before the bridge? Instead of making it, like, round there, give it a different color. Something more angular... I think that would make the feeling feel more like that.”
...?
Not round, but angular?
What the fuck was that supposed to mean?
But in stark contrast, behind him—
“Damn, that’s Shotgun for you.”
“He nails it immediately!”
“No cap. Look at that precise direction.”
“On my mama, that’s the earwax of a genius.”
Karvin was dumbfounded.
They understood that? Am I the only one who doesn’t?
It even made him start questioning himself.
His return after a long hiatus.
Could it be that he...
had fallen behind the times?
Had he lost his touch?
Meanwhile.
Inside the booth, beyond the glass.
What the hell does that mean? Not round, but angular? What is that supposed to be?
Nova took off his headphones, intending to ask.
“What do you—”
His mouth opened.
Then he saw Shotgun’s expressionless face beyond the glass.
The sunglasses.
The straight line of his mouth.
...!
What if he admitted that he did not understand?
Shotgun would choose him as the target of his next diss track.
The diss track would already have dropped by the time his flight back to Chicago took off.
The moment he landed and opened his phone, his career would have been deleted.
A chill ran through Nova.
Calm down. Think.
Adrenaline surged through him.
His survival instincts released the limiter on his brain.
Round. What I’m doing right now is dragging out the note to fill the space. That’s what he means by round.
Then angular must mean—
Cutting the notes off. Like staccato. Leave the empty space empty, then slam the next note in hard.
The impact of the first syllable after the silence.
The tension created by the silence, followed by an explosion that shattered it.
Right. That’s it.
Nova put his headphones back on.
“Okay. I understand. Let me try it again.”
“...Good.”
At that moment.
Karvin’s jaw dropped.
...He understood that? Am I the only one who didn’t?
Just as doubt began creeping into him once again—
“Then I’ll start right away.”
The first verse, now incorporating the feedback, began.