Chapter 47
Last Mile — Delivery Man (Prod. asd1236)
The song was released.
An independent release.
A method where the artist uploads music through a distributor without involving a major label.
For an individual to release a song in the American music market was like setting a paper boat afloat in the ocean.
When a major label was involved, money was burned on radio promotion and social media advertising to secure exposure.
When a distributor was involved, the song could launch simultaneously across major platforms, along with the connections needed to push it into editorial playlists.
But an individual release?
Independent distribution services like DistroKid could get a song onto the platforms.
(Translator’s Note:DistroKid — An American independent digital music-distribution service launched as DistroKid in 2013. It allows musicians to distribute releases to services such as Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube Music, Amazon Music, Deezer, and others without signing with a conventional major label.)
But being uploaded and being heard were two entirely different things.
Spotify alone received one hundred thousand new songs every day.
Being discovered in that ocean without promotion was about as difficult as winning the lottery.
And Last Mile was at the very bottom of that lottery.
First day after release.
Streams: 47.
Well, I expected that.
Park Geon calmly stared at the streaming dashboard.
ASD’s account had only a two-digit number of existing followers, so even this was more than he deserved.
Honestly, about ten of those forty-seven streams had come from Park Geon himself.
Under the excuse of monitoring.
Secretly replaying your own song at dawn on the first day of release was practically an unwritten rule for anyone who had released music.
...Wait. Did Jay do the same thing?
He asked.
[Jay: ...Hyung, you too?]
“Ha.”
He slapped a palm against his forehead.
Around that time, the music video was also uploaded to YouTube.
It was camcorder footage J-Rackz had shot on the street.
The editing consisted of little more than trimming the beginning and end.
Views: 112.
Comments: 2.
—What is this?
└No idea, but it has a vibe.
Second day.
Streams: 89.
It did go up.
Naturally, it had not charted.
Spotify’s algorithm was ruthless toward songs with no initial traffic.
And there was no way a curator would select a song by a rapper they had never heard of, produced by someone using the careless-looking string “asd1236” as a name, with hastily made cover art.
Yeah. If I were the algorithm, I wouldn’t pick it either.
Park Geon understood that better than anyone.
After all, the song had never been made to appeal to an algorithm.
But on the third day, contrary to expectations, comments slowly began appearing on YouTube.
—What is this beat?
└Delivery Man? Never heard of the rapper.
└ASD? Never heard of that one either.
└Damn, but the diction is insane.
└That footstep intro gives me chills.
└After three listens, it keeps coming back to me. What is this?
└Algorithm, do your job.
Fourth day.
Streams: 213.
Fifth day.
Streams: 384.
The numbers were still nowhere near the charts.
But the slope of the graph was gradually becoming steeper.
On the seventh day, someone posted about the song on a hip-hop subreddit.
—Unknown rapper. Give this a listen. Guy called Delivery Man raps over an ASD beat and his diction is insane.
└The beat is kind of weird, but that somehow makes it addictive.
└This was independently released with no promotion.
└The song is good, but nobody is backing it, so this is what happens.
└This is honestly too good to get buried.
└I searched asd1236 and found nothing. Is this some ghost producer?
└Delivery Man has major-label-level diction. Why the hell is he stuck like this?
With a moved expression, Park Geon quietly took screenshots of the comments.
Those words were more valuable to him than the streaming numbers.
...See? I’m getting recognized as ASD too.
Of course, there was the small problem that the number of people recognizing him was extremely small...
But still.
Meanwhile—
Inglewood, the Bloods’ hideout.
“LK Records?”
Marcus frowned.
“Jay?”
“Yes. Big Joe personally approved his signing.”
The guy who used to do deliveries had officially joined a Crips label.
Marcus’s fingers tapped irritably against the desk.
Something had gone seriously wrong somewhere.
But he could not figure out exactly what that “something” was.
Jay, that bastard... what kind of connections did he have to get onstage at The Vault? And how did he get connected to ASD?
He immediately reported it to Leonard as well.
Leonard’s reaction was plain.
“So how is the song doing?”
Marcus showed him the screen of his smartphone.
Spotify daily streaming graph.
“Forget charting. The streams are only in the three digits.”
“Then it isn’t worth paying attention to.”
Leonard shrugged.
“Forget Jay. With numbers like that, he’ll never grow as a rapper, and he’ll only become a burden to the Crips.”
The Bloods members who overheard them snickered among themselves.
One gang member nearby scoffed and joined in.
“That delivery bastard’s life isn’t going to change just because he picked up a microphone. He should’ve kept delivering packages.”
“Ayy, the Crips just picked up a piece of trash.”
“But the song itself is...”
...kind of interesting.
Reading the room, no one said that part aloud.
“That song fucking sucks.”
“Yeah. Underground as hell.”
Jay’s apartment was at the end of an alley in one of the poorest parts of the neighborhood.
It was evening, and his parents were still at the laundromat.
“Open up.”
Park Geon stood outside holding shopping bags in both hands.
He was not wearing sunglasses.
A hoodie and jeans.
The usual Park Geon.
“Bro, you’re here? What’s all that?”
“Congratulations on your debut as a rapper.”
“...?”
Jay’s eyes widened.
Park Geon opened the shopping bag.
Inside was a folded T-shirt with a logo on it.
Beneath it was a silver-toned Cuban link chain.
“The shirt is Balenciaga, and I bought the chain on GOAT.”
(Translator’s Note:Balenciaga — A luxury fashion house founded by Spanish designer Cristóbal Balenciaga in Spain in 1917; the house later established itself in Paris in 1937. The brand is associated with luxury fashion and, in modern popular culture, has a strong presence in celebrity and hip-hop fashion.)
(Translator’s Note:GOAT — An American online marketplace for sneakers, apparel, accessories, and luxury goods, founded in 2015 by Eddy Lu and Daishin Sugano. The platform developed a reputation around authentication and resale-market commerce.)
Jay lifted the chain.
It had a satisfying weight.
“H-hyung, is this real?!”
“Of course it’s real. I’d be embarrassed if I gave you a fake.”
Jay put the chain around his neck.
It settled over his collarbones with a soft metallic weight.
“Wow...”
He stood in front of the mirror.
Fiddling with the chain, he turned his head from side to side.
“Hyung, don’t I look fucking cool right now?”
...You look like such a loser.
And for a moment, Park Geon saw himself overlapping with that image...
“Try on the shirt too.”
Jay put it on.
The size fit perfectly.
He immediately began posing in front of the mirror again.
“Don’t I have a vibe? Huh?”
“Sit down first. I need to talk to you.”
The two sat facing each other on the sofa and made eye contact.
“Last Mile got posted on Reddit too, and views on the video from The Vault are gradually going up.”
“...Really?”
“Well... the streams are still miserable, though.”
At this rate, I won’t be able to get revenge on Big Joe after all.
Park Geon sighed inwardly, but then burst out laughing when he saw Jay’s reaction.
“Hyung, that still means someone listened to my song! A stranger!”
Unable to contain his excitement, Jay walked circles around the cramped living room.
He was even walking with a hip-hop swagger, and surprisingly, it did not look awkward.
Maybe he really did have natural groove.
“In my opinion, your potential is even greater than Lil D’s.”
“...Greater than Lil D’s?”
“Yeah. Lil D is an instinctive type. He has natural groove, and his charisma explodes onstage. But you’re different. You’re the growth type.”
Park Geon continued seriously.
“You hear feedback once and immediately send back a revision. And every time, you understand exactly what I meant. That speed, that comprehension. I’ve been around this industry plenty, and I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“Whoa. How long have you been around?”
“...Sorry.”
“Hahahaha! What was that? You were bluffing?!”
Park Geon scratched his cheek.
“Anyway, right now Lil D is above you. Of course he is. There’s a difference in experience. But six months from now? A year from now? Even I don’t know how far your growth curve will climb.”
Jay listened with his mouth tightly shut.
Then, sounding overwhelmed, he said,
“...Thank you. For the gifts today, and for thinking so highly of me.”
Park Geon playfully grabbed Jay’s head and shook it around.
Retirement had not made Cabin lazy.
“Yaaawn...”
Six in the morning.
His eyes opened without an alarm.
Before retiring, he had lived a life of digging until dawn and waking up late.
But after retirement, his body had somehow reversed itself.
One cup of black coffee.
Light stretching.
Then he sat in front of the turntable, took out an old LP, and lowered the needle.
Crackle—
Seventies soul filled the living room.
That was Cabin’s morning routine.
All right. Time to start.
When afternoon came, he usually listened to music from younger artists.
Songs currently on the charts.
Debut works by newcomers.
Sometimes even underground SoundCloud tracks.
It was a habit.
He hated the idea of his ears growing rusty more than death itself.
“...This again.”
After going through the chart Top 10 once, Cabin removed his headphones.
Songs these days all sounded similar, as though everyone had made an agreement.
Polished.
Sophisticated.
But that was as far as it went.
Once he listened to them, there was nothing he wanted to return to.
Everyone only makes safe music. There’s no one dangerous.
Just as boredom began rising—
He casually browsed the hip-hop subreddit on Reddit.
Raw recommendations that never appeared on the charts often floated around there.
Then one post caught his eye.
—Unknown rapper with insane diction. The ASD beat is weird but addictive.
Tch.
He saw the word “insane” hundreds of times a day in this industry.
Most of it was hype.
Without much expectation, he clicked the link.
Last Mile — Delivery Man (Prod. asd1236)
Step. Step. Step.
An intro that began with footsteps.
...What the hell is this? He starts the intro with footsteps?
Honestly, his first impression was not good.
The beat was difficult and unfriendly.
The kick avoided the downbeat, and the melody refused to stick in the ear.
As expected. Hype.
He was about to close the window.
But strangely, his hand would not move.
Something had lodged inside his ear like a thorn and refused to come out.
So he listened again.
Second listen.
The empty spaces that had irritated him at first now felt like breathing room.
The rapper’s syllables pushed into the gaps in the beat, and the friction created a strange tension.
Third listen.
Only then did he understand what the footsteps in the intro were.
The final corridor walked by a condemned prisoner on the way to execution.
The weight of that irreversible road lay beneath the entire song.
Fourth listen.
At some point, Cabin had begun nodding his head.
And now—
Fifth listen.
I definitely disliked it the first time. But the second time, the third time—no, the more I keep replaying it...
...this has something.
Pacific Music Group.
A major label ranked among the top five in the United States by music-market revenue.
Its A&R department.
“I found this on the hip-hop subreddit. The actual streams are terrible, but the comment response was unusual.”
“I’ll give it a listen.”
He pressed play.
Step. Step. Step.
The intro passed, and the beat entered.
Hmm.
It definitely was not mainstream.
But the further it progressed, the more something began to emerge.
The structure is unusual.
The spacing between the kick and snare had been intentionally distorted.
Then the rapper’s syllables climbed on top as though fighting the beat, and the friction became energy.
The tension built, then one beat was left empty immediately before the hook exploded.
This structure could be useful.
The next day.
A&R meeting.
“I found something interesting.”
He opened his laptop and displayed the waveform for Last Mile.
The head of the production team studied the screen.
“Avoiding the downbeat is trendy these days, but this is more extreme. It feels like they intentionally dismantled the grid. It’s strangely addictive, like Hawaiian pizza.”
“How about referencing the kick-placement pattern and tension-building structure in this beat and making something new on our end?”
“Sure. Referencing is fine. It happens all the time in this business. We’re taking inspiration.”
“Right. Inspiration. Not plagiarism.”
The two laughed at the same time.
Both understood exactly what the other meant.
“Which artist are we giving it to?”
“Jayden Cole. He needs a new beat for next month’s single production.”
“If it’s an unknown song that never charted, no one will notice.”
“Even if they do, the original has streams in the thousands. Who’s going to care?”
“The composer?”
The producer page appeared on the laptop.
asd1236.
No profile picture.
No biography.
“There’s absolutely no producer information.”
“Even better. So they’re anonymous.”
The team leader leaned back in his chair and smiled leisurely.
“If they’re anonymous, doesn’t that mean they’re less likely to challenge us? And even if they do, how is an unknown producer supposed to beat our legal team?”
“They’ll probably give up as soon as they see an estimate for attorney’s fees.”
“Perfect!”
The team leader patted him on the shoulder.
“Hey, you dug up something good. Finding a structure like this in an unknown song was lucky.”
“Haha, thank you.”
“Then send this track to the production team. Tell them to analyze the intro structure and the verse-to-bridge section. Oh, and have them make two or three demos with similar structures.”