Chapter 007
Chapter 007
Lil D stared at me blankly.
“…You know how to DJ too?”
“……”
“Beatmaking, producing, and now DJing on top of that?”
“……”
“You crazy bastard. You really are a crazy bastard.”
I couldn’t tell whether it was admiration or an insult.
“Now I get why Big Joe’s so hung up on you. Beatmaking, producing, DJing. You can do all three? I’ve never seen anyone in this game besides you who can do that.”
“……”
Neither have I.
Because I’m not that kind of guy either.
The truth is, I can’t do any of the three.
“Aight.”
Lil D sprang to his feet.
“Let’s go.”
“…Where?”
“Shopping.”
“…?”
Lil D looked me up and down.
Neat shirt, jeans.
“You’re going onstage as my partner. You can’t go up dressed like that.”
“……”
“What are you gonna do about that polo shirt? You look like some straight-A nerd who does nothing but study.”
I mean, I really did do nothing but study…
A little later,
we arrived in front of a store on La Brea Avenue.
Streetwear, shoes, accessories, you name it.
It was a huge shop that had everything.
But then…
“Shotgun!”
“Wassup.”
Dustin and Jamal were already there.
It looked like Lil D had contacted them beforehand.
No, if it’s like this…
Surrounded by three gang members, I entered the store, tense from head to toe.
The store employee seemed to recognize Lil D, and his eyes widened.
“Yo, Lil D! Been a minute!”
“Today we’re changing this guy from head to toe.”
Lil D jerked his chin at me.
The employee’s gaze swept over me.
“This is gonna be a pretty tough job.”
“No, wait, I’m fine just like this—”
And just like that, I became the gang’s plaything.
The dress-up game had begun.
Lil D ran his eyes along the racks and started pulling out clothes one by one.
The employee matched the sizes at his side, while Dustin and Jamal nodded or shook their heads like judges.
First combination.
An oversized black leather jacket with leather pants.
“Nah. Too rockstar.”
Second combination.
A graphic Supreme T-shirt with cargo pants.
“Hmm… something’s missing.”
“A chain. It needs a chain.”
“Oh shit, you’re right!”
Lil D jerked his chin at the employee.
The employee pulled out a Cuban-link chain necklace from the display case.
“Put it on.”
Lil D hung it around my neck himself.
Its weight settled across my collarbones with a heavy sway.
It felt like I was wearing a shackle around my neck.
“Ayyyy! There it is! That’s the one!”
Dustin threw both arms up and roared.
Even Jamal nodded at that.
“That goes hard.”
“……”
No matter how I looked at it, this was not how a law school student was supposed to dress.
I had never dressed like this in my life.
But do I have to pay for all of this? How much does all this even cost?
As I was picturing my bank balance in my head—
“Ah, it’s missing a cap.”
Lil D handed me a snapback.
I put it on in confusion, and Jamal turned the brim slightly to the side.
“This angle.”
“Figures Jamal knows what he’s doing.”
“Ah, we gotta change the shoes too.”
“Sunglasses too.”
Once I had the Jordans on and the sunglasses on too—
“Shit. Now that’s my partner.”
“……”
“The guy standing next to me can’t look like he just walked out of Walmart, can he?”
Lil D strode over to the counter.
The employee started scanning the barcodes.
Was Lil D actually paying for it himself?
I had been scared stiff thinking I was the one who had to pay…
H-how much is all that together?
Without even checking the payment screen, Lil D swiped his card.
“…Thanks.”
“You don’t need to thank me. This is an investment.”
“Daaamn, Lil D. You’re really spending today.”
“Swish, swish!”
“……”
After shopping was over,
they dropped me back in Koreatown in front of Gohyangmi.
Dustin said he wanted to go in and say hello to my parents, and I barely managed to talk him out of it before opening the back door and heading inside.
I crossed the dining floor toward the counter when—
“Oppa, there weren’t any clean aprons in the kitchen, so I was washing one for—”
Park Yul turned around.
Her gaze started at my feet and traveled upward.
“…Good lord.”
Park Yul clapped a hand over her mouth.
The moment I shut my bedroom door, I flipped open my laptop.
I immediately started searching for DJing.
[DJ tutorial beginner]
[How to DJ for live performance]
[Club DJ set basic mixing]
A flood of videos came up.
They all had different running times, but that didn’t matter.
I had to watch all of them.
There was no time.
So how do you even DJ?
Cue points, BPM matching, crossfaders, EQ transitions.
Even the terminology sounded like an alien language.
At least I had taught myself composition since elementary school, but DJing was something I genuinely knew nothing about.
(Translator’s Note:
Cue point — a preset marker for playback position
BPM — beats per minute, a tempo measurement
Crossfader — a mixer control used to transition between audio sources
EQ / EQ transition — equalization used to shape frequencies, often during transitions)
But if I don’t do it, I die.
The survival instinct really was something else.
The brain that had broken through law school admissions was now running in full optimization mode to study DJing.
If I had to give it a name,
it was the fear-of-death study method.
If you set cue points in advance and cut the low EQ right before the drop during the transition…
(Translator’s Note:Drop — the point where a track releases built-up tension, often with full beat impact)
I studied while taking notes on paper.
I had never organized notes this diligently even when writing law school reports.
Just then, there was a knock on the door.
“Oppa.”
Park Yul stood there holding a plate of fruit.
“Mom told me to bring this to you.”
“Ah, yeah. Just leave it there.”
As Park Yul set the plate down beside the desk, she glanced at my laptop screen.
“Did you start music again? Looking at the way you’re dressed today and all.”
“Ah, no. It’s not that…”
“You liked making music, though.”
“…Anyway, I didn’t start again.”
Park Yul tilted her head.
She looked like she wanted to press further, but maybe my tone had been too firm, because she stopped.
“Okay, okay. Just eat all the fruit.”
The bedroom door closed.
Did I like making music…?
I didn’t know.
This was no time to be thinking about that.
I bit into an apple and pressed play on the video again.
Crossfader.
EQ transition.
Drop timing.
Just cram it into your head, Park Geon.
And at that same time, rumors were beginning to spread through the South LA hood.
The barbershop.
For Black people, the barbershop was a neighborhood gathering place.
From stories about who had fought whom to stories about who was cheating on whom, all kinds of rumors passed back and forth in the spaces between the buzzing of clippers.
“They say Lil D’s performing at The Vault on Friday?”
One man sitting in a chair said it.
A reply came back from the chair beside him.
“Yeah, I heard. First time in a year.”
“What kind of face is he coming back with?”
“For real. He’s the one who tucked tail and ran because he was scared of J-Rackz.”
Another man sitting in the waiting area cut in.
“I was rooting for Lil D when he said he was going major, you know? I was seriously hoping we were finally gonna get another Billboard guy out of the Crips. But now what? Did he land a label deal? Did he drop an album? Even one single?”
Only the sound of the clippers kept buzzing.
“He didn’t. In the end, he failed to do anything and crawled right back underground. And now what I hear is he’s doing a new track with some amateur.”
The barber’s hand, midway through carving a lineup into someone’s hair, paused.
“An amateur? Who?”
“The name was… Shotgun, or something.”
“Shotgun? Huh, strong name.”
“And they say he’s Asian.”
The chair creaked as it turned.
“Asian?”
Hip-hop was born in the hood.
It was born at block parties, raised on the streets, and fed on the blood and sweat of the hood.
It was Black culture itself, which was why you could count the number of Asian producers recognized in this scene on one hand.
“Where’s that Asian guy from?”
“No idea. But rumor says Big Joe brought him in personally.”
The barber let out a whistle.
“Big Joe? The OG himself?”
“Yeah.”
A brief silence.
Then the man in the waiting area shrugged.
“Well… we’ll find out on Friday.”
“I’m curious, though. What kind of beat that Asian producer laid down. Yo, you going Friday night too, right?”
“Of course.”
It wasn’t just the barbershop.
At gas stations, convenience stores, basketball courts—
news of Lil D’s return to The Vault spread across the whole hood, and along with it, curiosity about the Asian guy called Shotgun kept growing.
“He’s got no credits at all? Not even a SoundCloud? What the hell is this Shotgun guy?”
Nobody knew.
Where he came from, what he had done, how good he really was.
There were only two things anyone knew for sure.
That he was Asian.
And that he had laid the beat for Lil D’s new track.
And then, Wednesday evening.
A group was talking while bouncing a basketball on the court.
“Yo, you hear that rumor? They say Shotgun’s handling the DJing too when Lil D performs.”
“…What?”
The ball bounced off the ground and rolled away.
“The beat is Shotgun, the DJing is Shotgun? Didn’t they also say Shotgun did the producing too?”
“Are you serious? He’s doing all that by himself?”
“What the hell kind of guy is he?”
A beat of silence.
“So who the hell is Shotgun?”
Whether it was Lil D’s return or Shotgun’s identity,
everyone began counting down the days until Friday.
Friday night.
The Vault Club.
A crowd was already swarming outside the entrance.
Not just Crips, but gang members from other parts of the hood, regular clubgoers, even aspiring rappers—everyone was mixed together, and the street felt like the eve of a festival.
“Yo, Lil D really performing tonight?”
“They say he’s bringing a new track.”
“In front of J-Rackz?”
“Damn, those two on the same stage? This is gonna explode.”
“More than that, aren’t you curious how J-Rackz is gonna react?”
“You think they’re gonna throw disses at each other too?”
Whispering spread through the long line.
“Tonight we finally get to see Shotgun.”
“That guy no one knows anything about except that he’s Asian?”
“They say he handled the producing, the composition, and the DJing too?”
“Holy shit!”
“We finally get to see what his face looks like.”
The line began moving, and people started entering one by one.
The dim dance floor.
It looked like twice the usual crowd had shown up because of Lil D’s return, and there was barely any space between bodies.
The air was thick with alcohol, cigarette smoke, and perfume.
The opening DJ’s beat was pounding through the speakers, but no one was paying attention to it.
“When’s Lil D coming out?”
“They say close to the end. Right after J-Rackz.”
“Ah, I wanna see it already.”
That was when it happened.
The back door of the club banged open.
The first one in was Dustin.
His one-hundred-ninety-two-centimeter frame stood there like a door itself as he swept his gaze once from side to side.
The people standing nearby stepped back on instinct.
Then Jamal appeared.
The teardrop tattoo beneath his eye gleamed under the lights.
There wasn’t a soul in this scene who didn’t know what that tattoo meant.
“…Aren’t those Big Joe’s people?”
“Crips?”
“That’s Dustin and Jamal.”
“The Crips are escorting somebody like that? Who the hell is coming in?”
“Big Joe? Nah, I saw Big Joe in the VIP section earlier.”
Dustin spread his arms wide.
“Yo! Is there a fucking show going on, niggas?! Move! Move the fuck back!”
Jamal pulled a gun from inside his jacket.
He flicked it back and forth as if telling them to get lost.
Then his eyes met those of someone blocking the way.
“Nigga, if you wanna get a bullet in your head, keep standing right there.”
Then Dustin tilted his head as he looked behind him.
Jamal stepped one pace to the side.
And between the two of them,
someone began walking forward.
“……”
With every step, a thick silver Cuban-link chain swung over an oversized Supreme T-shirt.
The brim of his snapback was turned slightly to the side, and his eyes were hidden behind sunglasses.
Dustin took the lead and cleared the way.
Then he stopped in front of one man who hadn’t moved aside.
Driving his chest into him, he growled,
“You not moving?”
“…!”
The man staggered sideways as if he were about to fall.
“Yo, look at me, nigga. Just look at me one more time.”
Jamal held the gun in one hand and scanned left and right with it still flicking lazily.
On one side, a man who had been raising his phone to record froze.
Then slowly tucked it back into his pocket.
“Oh, shit…”
The whispering thickened even more.
“Who’s the guy walking between those two?”
“Looks Asian.”
“Wait… no way.”
The Asian man passed between them.
He didn’t spare anyone a glance.
He just walked forward expressionlessly, eyes fixed straight ahead.
“DAMN!”
Shock exploded from every direction.
“No way—that’s Shotgun?!”
“Wait, wait, wait. Shotgun?”
“SHEEEESH!”
“Ayyy, the atmosphere is insane right now!”