Chapter 33
Chapter 33
The cheers of the Crips rang out.
And walking through the middle of them was a fellow Korean, just like him.
...N-No way.
Memories of the past few days flashed through Jay’s mind.
ASD.
The anonymous producer who uploaded beats to SoundCloud.
The feedback ASD had sent him.
...Then I’ve been communicating with Shotgun this whole time?
While Shotgun walked through the Crips members, Jay could not move even a single step.
Then—
“Huh? Wait.”
“Isn’t that the guy who used to make deliveries around Inglewood?”
“A low-ranking Blood?”
The atmosphere rapidly turned cold.
One of the gang members strode up to Jay.
“Yo, how did you get in here?”
Jay’s shoulders shrank.
“Ah, I mean, I... I left the Bloods now, so...”
As if things were not bad enough already, heavy footsteps pounded from the side.
It was Dustin.
“How are we supposed to believe that? Huh?”
“...!”
Cold sweat ran down Jay’s back.
Just as he instinctively tried to step backward—
“Don’t.”
A low voice spread through the hallway.
Dustin’s hand, which had been reaching for Jay’s collar, stopped.
The Crips members who had been provoking Jay from behind also froze.
You’re scaring my friend, you crazy bastards...!
Dustin spread both arms wide.
“Shotgun, no matter how I think about it, this is—”
“Dustin.”
“...Aight. Fine. Fine.”
Dustin snorted hot air into Jay’s face as if warning him, then turned around.
The Crips members gathered behind him also quietly returned to their places.
And Shotgun resumed walking down the hallway.
As though nothing had happened.
Wow...
Jay stared blankly at his back.
With one word, he had shut the mouths of the Crips.
“...”
Honestly, Jay had thought they were the same type.
They got along well, and throughout their conversation, Jay had felt that they gave off similar vibes.
But now that thought had been shattered to pieces.
“...Delivery Man.”
“!”
ASD—no, Shotgun—called out to him.
“Come on.”
“Y-Yeah!”
Jay hurriedly followed after him.
As he crossed the hallway, the Crips members standing on both sides glared at him, but none of them said anything.
“We’re not doing an official recording today. We’re just getting a rough feel for it, so relax.”
“...”
Even now, the Crips-affiliated composers behind him were glaring with their arms crossed.
There was no way he could relax.
Of course...
Park Geon felt the same way.
He truly could not get used to this.
Jay got scared too...
Feeling an odd sense of camaraderie, Park Geon patted him on the shoulder.
Then, just as Jay was about to open the door and enter the booth—
“Delivery Man.”
The low voice sounded from behind him.
Come to think of it, even his voice was different from when they had been talking at the café.
“Just do it like you did when you sent me that demo.”
Inside the car.
The freestyle he had rapped alone where no one could hear.
Shotgun remembered that.
“...Okay. I will.”
Jay entered the booth.
He put on the headphones.
This is my first time rapping in a recording booth.
Sound-absorbing material surrounded him on every side, and an expensive-looking microphone stood right in front of his face.
But there was nothing different.
Remembering what Shotgun had just told him, Jay gently closed his eyes.
Before he knew it, he was back inside his car.
Boom, boom-boom...
The beat began playing.
Lil D’s fourth track.
A hazy synth floated above a heavy 808, while a piano arpeggio seemed to shatter across the arrangement.
The concept of the song was Lil D’s honest confession.
It really is different.
The color itself was different from ASD’s beats.
He could not say which was better or worse, since he personally liked ASD’s strange beats too.
But he could tell that the beat playing now was more accessible to the public.
Ah, so that’s what he meant.
What ASD had told him in the café.
That, as ASD, he wanted to make the music he wanted without being chased by anything.
That was why he stayed anonymous.
...So what he meant by being chased was the public.
After marveling once again at Shotgun’s genius, Jay looked over the lyric sheet.
He read the flow of Lil D’s verse and estimated the entry point for his own part.
Then his verse arrived.
His mouth opened.
Creeeak—
Meanwhile, the studio door opened and Lil D entered.
He had come to personally check the feature artist for the fourth track on his album.
So that guy is Delivery Man?
The rap began flowing.
Lil D bobbed his head and listened carefully.
The texture of his voice was not bad.
Just as the name Delivery Man suggested, every pronunciation landed clearly and precisely.
But—
He’s not that good.
His emotional dynamics were too even.
The tension stayed nearly the same whether it was the beginning of the verse or the end.
Whether he ran for eight bars or sixteen, the temperature never changed.
It was like driving down a highway in a single gear.
Shotgun heard this and decided there was something here? This is just amateur-level skill.
Lil D had accepted the feature because he trusted Shotgun, but he was convinced this particular decision was a mistake.
Near the end of the first take, just as he was about to seriously say that this was not going to work, Shotgun pressed the intercom button first.
“In the middle, you go up and then come back down, right? When you come down, it’s kind of... you don’t fall as far as you went up. You need to drop as hard as you rose so that what comes after can live.”
...?
Lil D blinked.
Then he began thinking.
It had happened before, but understanding Shotgun’s feedback required time.
Going up and then coming down means... Is he talking about volume? Hmm, no. I think the volume was already strong enough...
As he frowned and tried to decipher the code—
Inside the booth—
“Yeah, I understand.”
What?
Lil D jerked his head up.
Jay was already muttering to himself as if he had figured it out.
“...Good. Let’s try it again.”
The first half of the verse.
It was not much different from before.
Lil D watched with his arms crossed.
But once the verse entered the middle section—
...!
The tension suddenly rose.
Not the volume, as Lil D had guessed.
The tension.
Heat entered Jay’s voice, his breaths became shorter, and each pronunciation gained weight.
Then, right before the hook—
Stop—
He deliberately left one beat empty.
Earlier, he had filled that spot with sound.
This time, he left it blank.
A gap.
One beat of silence.
Tak!
The next syllable dropped.
There was now a fall.
He dropped as hard as he had climbed.
“Wow, that bastard really lives up to the name Delivery Man! He’s damn good at delivering feedback!”
One of the Crips-affiliated composers watching from behind grabbed his head with both hands.
His expression said that he hated admitting it, but had no choice.
Whether Jay had left the gang or whatever else had happened, the fact that he had originally been with the Bloods still bothered him.
“Is that really the same guy as before?”
“On my mama, he turned into a different person after hearing feedback once.”
“Damn it, stop making such a big deal out of him. It’s not that guy who’s insane. Shotgun is.”
“Still, it’s true that he accepted the feedback immediately.”
“Fuck, don’t make me laugh. Nova did the same thing.”
“Isn’t being compared to Nova already a compliment?”
The take ended.
Lil D stared into the booth with his jaw hanging open.
What he had just heard was unmistakably different from the rap before.
...Shit. What the hell just happened?
“One more time.”
Shotgun’s low voice came through.
“This time, go in like you’re firing a Gum-Gum Gatling. But in the middle, take one break that feels like a soft, fluffy cloud.”
...?
“You mean split the whole verse up and deliver it fast in a chopped-up style, but put one line in a whisper tone in the middle to create contrast, right?”
“Exactly.”
“I’ll go right away.”
...?
The third take began.
The rap that had been running steadily over the beat until then suddenly began pouring out violently.
Then, at bar twelve, a whisper entered like a comma.
Delivery Man tapped his temple twice with his index finger and raised one corner of his mouth in a grin.
“...!”
Then the violent flow exploded again.
“OHHH! He changed again!”
“What the hell is this? He evolves every take!”
“On God! That bastard’s growth speed is insane!”
“...Huh. Guess he got into it. That gesture just now was fucking cool.”
This time, everyone began getting excited without caring where Jay had come from.
“That’s Shotgun’s direction for you! He raises a person three levels!”
“Nah, that’s alchemy!”
“Damn, I guess I’m still lacking. I didn’t understand it.”
“What the hell is Gum-Gum Gatling?”
“Yo, Delivery Man. That was pretty decent just now.”
And Lil D leaned back against the sofa with a hollow laugh.
...Now I get it. Why he brought that guy here. Shotgun is even a monster at judging people. This scary bastard.
He did not even feel jealous.
What Lil D felt right now was something more primitive.
A near-instinctive shiver at the thought that the name of that monster would be on his album.
After the first recording session ended—
I headed to Gohyangmi with my friend Jay and J-Rackz.
Haaah. Being with the Jay duo makes me relax immediately.
When I opened the door to Gohyangmi, my mother flinched in surprise before greeting us.
“Oh? You came with friends? I’ve never seen these two before.”
At that, my father rushed out of the kitchen.
Maybe he could not believe that I had brought new friends.
The Jay duo greeted them, and we talked for a little while.
Of course, I had warned them beforehand to keep the fact that I was Shotgun a secret.
After we were shown to our seats—
“By the way.”
Jay asked carefully.
“You seem kind of different in the studio compared to how you are now... Can I ask why?”
“...”
The reason was simple.
I felt that my life was in danger every second I was around the Crips, so I naturally became stiff.
Although I guess I don’t really feel that way around Lil D anymore.
The rancher was still terrifying, though.
Either way, I could not say that honestly.
“...That’s because I’m working then.”
Jay’s eyes slowly widened.
J-Rackz jumped in.
“Yeah. He becomes a completely different person when he’s making music.”
He elbowed me lightly in the side.
“Honestly, I’m fine right now too, but once he puts those sunglasses on? Hah. He scares the shit out of me.”
Jay looked at me with admiration.
“Wow... So it’s professionalism. You have a switch between how you are during music and how you are normally?”
“...?”
Technically, that was not wrong.
The problem was that it was a death switch.
Park Seung-ho stirred a pot of soup in the kitchen while glancing toward the dining area.
Toward where his son, Geon, was sitting.
“Honey.”
Kim Mi-young came over beside him.
“Look over there.”
Geon was laughing out loud.
His Korean friend said something, making him burst out laughing and slap the table with his palm, while his Black friend stopped eating ribs midway through and laughed along with him.
“I think this is the first time I’ve seen him like that.”
Their son had never had friends since childhood.
He had always been alone, and whenever they asked why, he simply said being alone was more comfortable.
But now he was laughing like that with friends.
“...Yeah.”
“I’m glad.”
When I Wake Up.
The posthumous work of Big Joe’s older brother, Little K.
The fact that I would die if I failed to properly finish it was still unchanged.
Thanks to that, even after several days, I had not relaxed at all.
Let’s squeeze my brain again today.
I checked the layers I had placed over DJ Cabin’s piano loop one by one.
Above J-Rackz’s guide rap, Nova’s verse had been replaced with the revised recording.
Everything up to here is fine.
What remained was Aella’s part.
She was scheduled to come to HOOVER SOUND the following week to record her feature.
The problem was—
...I don’t have much time left. Haaah. Did I waste time hanging out with the Jay duo today? No. It was still a day I don’t regret.
Producing a pop vocalist was an entirely different world from hip-hop.
You needed to understand vocal range, vocal production, layering, harmonics, and things like that to give direction.
What if I ruin Big Joe’s brother’s posthumous work?
A chill ran down my back.
Damn it. Here we go again.
The fear of death released my brain’s limiter, and my concentration began operating at full capacity.
...Yeah. This is the feeling. This pressure of being chased.
I opened YouTube beside my laptop.
Then I began writing notes in a text file.
Several hours passed.
I think I understand the theory to some degree now, but it’d be good to learn from someone with practical experience...
Then one name suddenly came to mind.
My longtime role model.
DJ Cabin.
A producer who erased the boundaries between genres.
During his active years, he had also produced albums for R&B and pop artists.
Vocal direction had been one of DJ Cabin’s specialties.
...Would it be okay to ask DJ Cabin?
Lately, one scene kept replaying in DJ Cabin’s head.
During Nova’s recording session.
The feedback Shotgun had given.
—...Not round. Make it feel a little more angular.
Fuck, what the hell does round or angular even feel like?
He had been racking his brain ever since that day, but no answer had come.
Those were not terms used in music theory.
While cursing to himself and agonizing over it, DJ Cabin suddenly noticed his reflection in the mirror.
His face was twisted into a deep frown.
Nah. This is ridiculous.
Then he decided to admit it.
A rookie producer named Shotgun was stimulating him this much.
At that moment, the intercom rang.
When he went downstairs, Shotgun was standing there wearing sunglasses.
“...Thank you for helping me today.”
“Yo, hold on.”
DJ Cabin grinned.
“Let’s make one thing clear.”
“What...?”
“You didn’t come here to learn from me.”
“...?”
“That instinct you have. And that young trend you showed in [DRIVE]. So—”
DJ Cabin placed a hand on Shotgun’s shoulder and continued.
“We’re going to learn from each other.”
“...”
Park Geon was genuinely moved.
...Does that mean I just became partners with my role model?
DJ Cabin motioned for him to follow and took the lead.
They arrived in the living room of the mansion.
A grand piano stood magnificently in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows.
“There’s one core principle to producing pop vocals. A rapper rides on top of the beat. But a vocalist goes inside the beat. The voice has to become part of the beat.”
DJ Cabin placed his hands on the keys.
He played the original chord progression of When I Wake Up on the piano.
“Aella’s vocals have to come in here, and you need to know how to place a melody over those chords. First, C major seven. You know what that is, right?”
“...”
“Well, never mind. You said you taught yourself composition, so that’s understandable. C major seven is four notes: C, E, G, and B.”
“I understand.”
It was a chord with a dreamy, slightly jazzy resonance.
It was often used in pop and jazz.
C, E, G, B—
The dreamy sound spread through the living room.
Then—
“...I think there’s one more sound behind it.”
“What?”
“Behind the notes you just played... something else is ringing.”
DJ Cabin looked inside the open lid of the grand piano.
The strings he had just played were vibrating, and that vibration had transferred into neighboring strings, causing strings that had not been struck to resonate.
“...”
Sympathetic string vibration.
Overtones.
A phenomenon unique to grand pianos.
A range even an audio engineer would have difficulty identifying without equipment.
No way...
DJ Cabin’s heart began beating faster.
“Yeah? What do you hear?”
“Something round and thin.”
“...?”