WEBVTT - The Sellout 0:00:05.040 --> 0:00:07.760 At the height of the scandal, in a track came 0:00:07.800 --> 0:00:11.440 out by this underground hip hop group called Skull. It's 0:00:11.480 --> 0:00:14.400 a typical disk track. Skull is going after some other 0:00:14.480 --> 0:00:17.920 Korean hip hop artists like Dynamic Duo, but he also 0:00:18.239 --> 0:00:23.760 has some bars for Tableau. One of the lines goes, 0:00:24.040 --> 0:00:28.520 you can lie to other people about your education, but 0:00:28.600 --> 0:00:32.440 you can't lie to yourself. There's cheaters all around us, 0:00:32.840 --> 0:00:36.280 the media. It's all a set up. Someone's manipulating behind 0:00:36.280 --> 0:00:42.320 the scenes. We contacted Skull for comment, he didn't respond. 0:00:42.960 --> 0:00:47.360 But even beyond Skull, Tableau scandal was an opportunity for 0:00:47.479 --> 0:00:50.760 rappers who have been living in Epicaia's shadow. You could 0:00:50.800 --> 0:00:53.800 pile on, thow some lyrical darts, and maybe get some 0:00:53.840 --> 0:00:57.880 new fans. Because like all modern hip hop beef, the 0:00:57.920 --> 0:01:01.880 winner isn't necessarily the best rapper, it's whoever gets the 0:01:01.880 --> 0:01:06.360 most attention. These were the musicians the Tableau came up with, 0:01:07.240 --> 0:01:11.080 and when things started to crumble, they came for him. 0:01:11.120 --> 0:01:14.759 But the whole genius rapper thing was a double edged sword. 0:01:15.319 --> 0:01:18.399 It was a hook that helped Tablett break into the mainstream, 0:01:18.440 --> 0:01:20.760 and it also made some people in the hip hop 0:01:20.800 --> 0:01:35.680 scene turn on it a PHENI fip hop phenim fipop, 0:01:39.760 --> 0:01:42.040 what flies my name never, I can be drum, I 0:01:42.040 --> 0:01:44.840 can I can cat writing there my book around so 0:01:44.880 --> 0:01:55.600 on the Worst Past the Mark Yeah, blah blah blahla 0:01:56.920 --> 0:02:01.000 Vice and I Heart I'm Dexter Thomas and this is 0:02:01.040 --> 0:02:12.160 authentic Episode three, the sellout. When Epic Hi released their 0:02:12.200 --> 0:02:15.560 first album in two thousand three, the Korean music industry 0:02:15.760 --> 0:02:18.440 didn't really know what to do with them. They didn't 0:02:18.520 --> 0:02:21.280 understand how to package us, I guess, so they put 0:02:21.360 --> 0:02:23.680 us in these like I look like a magician in 0:02:23.760 --> 0:02:28.040 my first in my first TV performance, I literally look 0:02:28.120 --> 0:02:32.600 like a magician, and Mitra looks like a pirate, so 0:02:32.720 --> 0:02:36.359 we look like a magical like magical group of pirates. 0:02:36.919 --> 0:02:39.560 They try to make us dance, but they realized we couldn't, 0:02:40.080 --> 0:02:44.639 and so we're somewhere in between like dancing and rapping, 0:02:44.840 --> 0:02:48.200 which makes everything look awkward, and it was just horrible. 0:02:49.880 --> 0:02:52.880 I've seen pictures from these early days and the label 0:02:53.120 --> 0:02:56.120 didn't seem to get hip hop. It looked like they 0:02:56.160 --> 0:02:58.200 were trying to sell Epic High as some kind of 0:02:58.280 --> 0:03:01.600 edgy boy band. But it's hard to blame the label 0:03:01.840 --> 0:03:04.880 because there wasn't a whole lot of precedent. There was 0:03:04.960 --> 0:03:09.679 this group that I really liked in Korea called steg 0:03:10.160 --> 0:03:15.640 And and Voice The Patient Voice, great name right. For 0:03:15.680 --> 0:03:19.000 a long time, hip hop and Korea had been associated 0:03:19.080 --> 0:03:22.560 with this one group. The first time Saltegian Boys got 0:03:22.560 --> 0:03:26.480 on TV was and there's a performance from back then 0:03:26.720 --> 0:03:30.240 that everyone remembers. They were on a music competition show. 0:03:30.680 --> 0:03:33.600 At first, the only difference from any other Korean singers 0:03:33.840 --> 0:03:37.160 is that everyone's wearing baggy clothing New York Yankees jerseys 0:03:37.280 --> 0:03:40.640 and overalls. The lights start out dim and the guy 0:03:40.680 --> 0:03:43.040 in the front is singing what sounds like a run 0:03:43.040 --> 0:03:46.080 of the mill pop valley. But then the lights turn 0:03:46.200 --> 0:03:52.200 on and the beat drops, and then everyone gets up 0:03:52.360 --> 0:03:54.840 and starts dancing like they're in an MC hammer video 0:03:55.520 --> 0:04:01.560 and they start rapping in English to their music at 0:04:01.600 --> 0:04:03.680 first was not really kind of hip hop, but more 0:04:03.720 --> 0:04:06.680 of the dance music with some rapping. Ut ug Lee 0:04:06.840 --> 0:04:09.880 is a music professor, but he was a teenager when 0:04:09.880 --> 0:04:12.920 he saw sell Tegian Boys on that show. The rest 0:04:13.000 --> 0:04:16.640 of the acts were more mainstream stuff like traditional Korean 0:04:16.680 --> 0:04:20.160 pop music, were ballad singers, and the judges gave sell 0:04:20.160 --> 0:04:24.360 Tegian Boys a terrible score. One of them said, quote, 0:04:24.600 --> 0:04:27.640 your lyrics made me feel uncomfortable because of all the 0:04:27.680 --> 0:04:31.960 grammatical errors. But to the kids that didn't matter. And 0:04:32.000 --> 0:04:38.240 when I went to school next Monday, everybody talked about 0:04:38.240 --> 0:04:42.000 SETEGI would you say that Suchegin Boys, that that first 0:04:42.080 --> 0:04:46.680 TV appearance was that like the beginning for modern I 0:04:46.720 --> 0:04:49.640 should say that. Still I cannot say that it is 0:04:49.800 --> 0:04:54.040 the the hip hop, but still they were the one 0:04:54.120 --> 0:04:58.840 who introduced rap in Korea. Rap hadn't developed into its 0:04:58.880 --> 0:05:02.400 own genrees yet. It was more like some musicians would 0:05:02.400 --> 0:05:05.640 occasionally wrap just to add some flavor to their pop songs. 0:05:06.320 --> 0:05:09.400 I mean, even Celtegian Boys didn't fully lean into hip 0:05:09.440 --> 0:05:11.800 hop until the third album, which came out a few 0:05:11.839 --> 0:05:14.839 years later. It was the groups that came out after, 0:05:15.279 --> 0:05:19.240 like Drunken Tiger, Dynamic Duo, and Epic High that would 0:05:19.279 --> 0:05:21.440 really shape what we now think of as the early 0:05:21.520 --> 0:05:26.760 Korean hip hop scene. But even into the early two thousand's, 0:05:26.760 --> 0:05:31.520 this was all still pretty underground. Rappers were mostly just 0:05:31.560 --> 0:05:35.480 a bunch of fanatic kids, and nobody thought that hip 0:05:35.520 --> 0:05:41.159 hop would ever be mainstream in Korea. Whenever I ask 0:05:41.240 --> 0:05:44.640 anyone about where it all started. For Tableau, for Epic High, 0:05:44.920 --> 0:05:48.440 and for Korean hip hop in general, one place always 0:05:48.520 --> 0:05:56.400 comes up, Hung Day. Hung Days the name for a 0:05:56.440 --> 0:05:59.480 neighborhood that's around hung Nic University, and in the early 0:05:59.520 --> 0:06:02.880 two thou it was the hip hangout for young people 0:06:02.920 --> 0:06:08.440 who were into art and music alright, one to to 0:06:08.520 --> 0:06:13.080 check one two one two. During the daytime, Hung Day 0:06:13.120 --> 0:06:17.200 looked like any other college area, small cafes, boutique shops, 0:06:17.240 --> 0:06:20.200 that kind of thing. But at night, the local pubs, 0:06:20.600 --> 0:06:25.840 bars and clubs transformed the neighborhood. The central gathering points 0:06:26.760 --> 0:06:29.880 was this neighborhood, and also specifically there was most of 0:06:29.880 --> 0:06:33.760 the nightlife targeted young college kids, so the drinks were cheap, 0:06:34.160 --> 0:06:36.680 the music was loud, and a lot of the clubs 0:06:36.920 --> 0:06:41.599 were literally underground. I remember Master Planned. On the weekdays 0:06:43.240 --> 0:06:48.279 they have rock music performance when the weekend was I 0:06:48.320 --> 0:06:51.400 think hip hop. This is ju Choy, but people in 0:06:51.440 --> 0:06:54.279 the hip hop scene call him j Win, So I 0:06:54.400 --> 0:06:58.400 just added Win because among all this Jay, I'm the winners. Win. 0:07:00.880 --> 0:07:03.400 J Win introduced Epic Hi to each other and he 0:07:03.480 --> 0:07:06.680 produced their first album. But before that he was one 0:07:06.720 --> 0:07:08.960 of the o G producers in the scene, and he 0:07:09.000 --> 0:07:11.440 was always on the lookout for new talent in hung Day. 0:07:11.680 --> 0:07:14.840 So at that time there's a hip hop live club 0:07:14.920 --> 0:07:20.400 called master Plan in Soul. That's the underground hip hop 0:07:20.440 --> 0:07:24.880 live club where Korean hip hop underground rappers who are 0:07:24.920 --> 0:07:30.640 performing every weekend at that time for underground mcs. Their 0:07:30.800 --> 0:07:33.840 dream is to perform at master Plan. If you were 0:07:33.840 --> 0:07:36.680 into hip hop at this time, you were an outsider. 0:07:36.720 --> 0:07:39.240 To the outsiders, there weren't a lot of places for 0:07:39.280 --> 0:07:42.640 you to go, even in hung Day. So all the rappers, 0:07:42.840 --> 0:07:46.240 the DJs, the break dancers, they went to master Plan, 0:07:46.720 --> 0:07:49.880 not just to hang out, but to prove themselves. They 0:07:49.880 --> 0:07:54.000 took it seriously. There. Master Plan was the place for 0:07:54.080 --> 0:07:57.120 hip hop. Have you been in the neighborhood where master 0:07:57.160 --> 0:08:03.120 Plan was recently, No Richard and a twenty years on, 0:08:03.560 --> 0:08:08.800 the neighborhood has changed a lot. That grimmy underground vibe 0:08:09.040 --> 0:08:11.720 is pretty much gone. It's a lot more commercial now. 0:08:12.040 --> 0:08:16.440 There's expensive restaurants and franchise stores and master Plan closed 0:08:16.480 --> 0:08:18.840 a long time ago. The building where it used to 0:08:18.840 --> 0:08:22.200 be still exists, but now it's more of a multipurpose 0:08:22.200 --> 0:08:25.760 event space. One of the few things that hasn't changed 0:08:26.200 --> 0:08:29.960 is the spot across the street. I really want to 0:08:30.040 --> 0:08:34.200 visit there because there's a favorite restaurant we always it 0:08:34.559 --> 0:08:38.640 after a performance. Is it the one right across the street, right, yeah, 0:08:38.720 --> 0:08:41.520 right in front of the Yet it's called I think Yet, 0:08:42.280 --> 0:08:45.120 I think. Okay, let's see. Yeah. So if you look 0:08:45.120 --> 0:08:46.920 on the wall here, you can see there's all these 0:08:46.960 --> 0:08:50.800 different people with signs, stuff from whatnot. The restaurant is 0:08:50.840 --> 0:08:53.920 really tiny. The owner is this older woman who didn't 0:08:53.960 --> 0:08:56.040 want to be interviewed, but she was down to talk 0:08:56.080 --> 0:08:59.040 to us. She seemed kind of confused about why we 0:08:59.040 --> 0:09:01.640 were asking about this club that had closed down so 0:09:01.679 --> 0:09:04.280 long ago. I asked her if she knew who Epic 0:09:04.320 --> 0:09:07.000 High was, and she said she did, and as a 0:09:07.000 --> 0:09:09.440 matter of fact, she had pictures of them taped up 0:09:09.440 --> 0:09:12.120 on the wall in the back. Right here at the top, 0:09:12.679 --> 0:09:17.760 there's table with this like I said, this got like 0:09:17.800 --> 0:09:21.160 a run DMC, kind of big brimmed hat like Pharrell 0:09:21.559 --> 0:09:26.840 of Epic High. The members signed paper. Yeah yeah you 0:09:26.920 --> 0:09:29.679 gotta go back, man. Yeah, she's got she's got stuff 0:09:29.679 --> 0:09:33.120 from everybody. Yeah, my god, I should go there. I 0:09:33.200 --> 0:09:35.840 really missed that place. I remember like every time we 0:09:35.880 --> 0:09:39.520 were waiting outside. Could better we're you're so you know, 0:09:39.600 --> 0:09:43.880 shaky because it's so cold. And then she always told 0:09:44.000 --> 0:09:46.679 us like, hey, come inside, you just take back here. 0:09:46.920 --> 0:09:48.160 What do they think of you? There are a bunch 0:09:48.160 --> 0:09:50.560 of hip hop kids coming in after the concert. I 0:09:50.600 --> 0:09:55.840 don't think she knows what we are doing. I don't 0:09:55.880 --> 0:09:59.360 think she knows what hip hoppies. I think she just 0:09:59.440 --> 0:10:08.880 treat us just kind of her grandson. Do you remember 0:10:08.880 --> 0:10:18.440 when you first met Tablow? Where were you? Oh? What? Regin, 0:10:18.760 --> 0:10:21.600 whose real name is Jin Choi, is the other m 0:10:21.679 --> 0:10:24.440 C and epic Hi. He says when he first met 0:10:24.480 --> 0:10:28.280 Tableau in a hotel lobby, He's been expecting somebody who 0:10:28.320 --> 0:10:32.240 looked a little less nerdy. J Wynn had orchestrated the meetings. 0:10:32.600 --> 0:10:35.240 At the time, Tableau was still in college and he'd 0:10:35.240 --> 0:10:37.720 come home to Soul for the winter break, and he 0:10:37.800 --> 0:10:39.680 was wanting to see if maybe he could get signed 0:10:39.679 --> 0:10:43.080 in Korea. J wyn made table Will perform on the spot. 0:10:43.520 --> 0:10:46.880 He played him some beats and Tableau started rapping. One 0:10:46.880 --> 0:10:51.240 all of them was actually lesson ones uh originalal beat 0:10:51.320 --> 0:10:55.680 in the first album, and that was same lyrics of 0:10:56.240 --> 0:11:04.240 Lesson mark break out. Wow, What did you think? Because 0:11:04.400 --> 0:11:08.200 those are some pretty serious lyrics. Were you expecting that? No? 0:11:08.800 --> 0:11:11.160 In my mind, I was like, whoa, this guy's first 0:11:11.480 --> 0:11:15.440 serious right. I kind of like it, but I don't 0:11:15.440 --> 0:11:18.640 want to say, Oh, I like you. I like your 0:11:18.640 --> 0:11:21.760 wrap on the first day. Right. Tableau only wrapped in 0:11:21.760 --> 0:11:25.040 English back then, which was fine for the parties in California, 0:11:25.480 --> 0:11:28.040 but it wasn't going to cut it in Korea. So 0:11:28.400 --> 0:11:30.439 j Wynn told him, as soon as you go back 0:11:30.480 --> 0:11:35.840 to Stanford every week, you should record one or two 0:11:35.840 --> 0:11:40.040 songs in Korean lyrics and you should send me. So 0:11:40.080 --> 0:11:42.960 he did that I was fluent in Korean, but that 0:11:43.080 --> 0:11:46.640 my Korean writing was nowhere near the way I was 0:11:46.640 --> 0:11:51.440 writing in English. And also it's very different rapping in Korean. 0:11:51.679 --> 0:11:55.040 You know, I had less experience with that. So while 0:11:55.559 --> 0:11:59.760 Tabolo was still studying in Stanford to finish his last semester, 0:12:00.800 --> 0:12:05.360 DJ came to my home like once, so we junk said, 0:12:05.440 --> 0:12:07.960 Kim a k A d J two Cuts is the 0:12:08.040 --> 0:12:10.559 third member of Epic Chai. When I asked him how 0:12:10.600 --> 0:12:12.920 he became a DJ, he told me that he didn't 0:12:12.920 --> 0:12:16.079 really have any choice. He tried to wrap. When did 0:12:16.080 --> 0:12:18.839 you decide, Hey, maybe I want to start trying to 0:12:18.920 --> 0:12:25.120 DJ labor, but quickly realized that he wasn't any good 0:12:25.200 --> 0:12:36.240 at and out of four elements of hip hop, BBoy D, 0:12:37.800 --> 0:12:42.040 the all I just show you so boy, you don't get. 0:12:42.240 --> 0:12:45.080 The only thing he was good at was DJ. He 0:12:45.200 --> 0:12:48.240 kept at it and one day he met j Wynn 0:12:48.280 --> 0:12:51.360 through a mutual friend. J Wynn mentioned that he needed 0:12:51.360 --> 0:12:53.400 a DJ for a group he was trying to put together, 0:12:53.880 --> 0:12:57.319 and two Cuts said well, hey, I could DJ, So 0:12:57.520 --> 0:13:00.880 they started working together. Then in two thousand to Tabloo 0:13:00.880 --> 0:13:03.240 came back to Korea and they all formed a group 0:13:03.720 --> 0:13:06.280 and j Winn helped them get signed to a small label. 0:13:07.000 --> 0:13:09.200 The way they all tell it, they didn't really have 0:13:09.280 --> 0:13:11.760 high expectations for this thing. They were a bunch of 0:13:11.760 --> 0:13:16.000 inexperienced kids making music in a genre that almost nobody 0:13:16.000 --> 0:13:18.800 in Korea even listened to the music industry at this 0:13:18.880 --> 0:13:22.640 point was basically either mainstream pop ballads or this other 0:13:22.720 --> 0:13:25.600 thing that people were starting to call k pop. There 0:13:25.640 --> 0:13:27.880 wasn't any room for a bunch of dudes yelling over 0:13:27.960 --> 0:13:31.360 drums into a microphone. They didn't even figure out a 0:13:31.440 --> 0:13:34.840 name yet, so we were talking like a pig at 0:13:34.880 --> 0:13:39.240 pick at pig something at pig or just just keep 0:13:39.360 --> 0:13:44.200 you know, spit it out like at pick Fly, like 0:13:44.400 --> 0:13:49.640 something like that. Then one day Tabolo and iur sitting 0:13:49.640 --> 0:13:52.040 in the college and watching TV and they said I 0:13:52.160 --> 0:13:58.400 was like at Pig High. Oh my god. I was like, 0:13:58.600 --> 0:14:03.439 oh my god, yes, every card, that's how your name. 0:14:06.880 --> 0:14:10.320 Now they were officially a hip hop group. They had 0:14:10.360 --> 0:14:13.440 a name, a contract, and some things they wanted to 0:14:13.440 --> 0:14:17.880 wrap about, so they started recording. But pretty soon they 0:14:17.960 --> 0:14:21.600 realized that something wasn't right with their label. They figured 0:14:21.600 --> 0:14:26.320 out that this this contract was messed up. It wasn't 0:14:26.360 --> 0:14:28.360 just messed up in that they weren't getting paid well, 0:14:28.760 --> 0:14:31.160 and they weren't. I mean, they were getting about ten 0:14:31.240 --> 0:14:34.280 dollars per day for meals to split between the three 0:14:34.280 --> 0:14:37.520 of them in the most expensive city in Korea. But 0:14:38.240 --> 0:14:42.200 the problem was now we had to pay the bill 0:14:42.760 --> 0:14:47.000 for all the recording and everything, which is ridiculous because 0:14:47.040 --> 0:14:50.560 we really didn't have enough to eat. And Tableau's parents 0:14:50.800 --> 0:14:54.480 were not an option. They were still up in arms 0:14:54.520 --> 0:14:57.400 about the fact that I've finished up college and to 0:14:57.520 --> 0:15:01.240 do this that they didn't want me like living in 0:15:01.920 --> 0:15:05.840 their home, So now we have nowhere to live. I 0:15:05.880 --> 0:15:08.320 was living at one rapper's house and another rapper's house. 0:15:08.360 --> 0:15:10.760 Any friend that would have me, you just CouchSurfing at 0:15:10.760 --> 0:15:13.960 this point, Oh, it wasn't CouchSurfing. One guy that I 0:15:14.000 --> 0:15:16.800 was living with who's still great friends with me, he 0:15:16.920 --> 0:15:21.840 had a like an attic, uh, like where you climbed 0:15:21.880 --> 0:15:23.960 up a ladder and you opened the attic and a 0:15:24.000 --> 0:15:27.720 tiny space. He allowed me to stay there as long 0:15:27.760 --> 0:15:32.280 as his mom didn't find that. And I remember, like, 0:15:32.400 --> 0:15:35.360 just like some movie, like I would open the crack 0:15:35.480 --> 0:15:37.960 and they would be eating dinner, and I would open 0:15:38.000 --> 0:15:40.520 it because he smelled so good and I was so hungry, 0:15:41.280 --> 0:15:44.400 and it was like from some Disney movie or something 0:15:44.440 --> 0:15:48.160 where like I'm like hiding in this rich family's house 0:15:48.200 --> 0:15:50.480 and I'm hungry, and I'm just you know, that's just 0:15:51.160 --> 0:15:56.760 literally what what? What went on? For about a year, 0:15:57.280 --> 0:16:01.400 Epic High was stuck but at an album, but no 0:16:01.440 --> 0:16:04.000 one could hear it because the contract they were in 0:16:04.320 --> 0:16:06.960 so they couldn't release the record until they paid back 0:16:06.960 --> 0:16:09.680 their debt first, and none of them had that kind 0:16:09.680 --> 0:16:12.960 of money. I felt like I had completely fucked up 0:16:13.040 --> 0:16:16.960 my life, like on my own. The only way they 0:16:16.960 --> 0:16:20.080 could escape was if another label took them on and 0:16:20.120 --> 0:16:23.120 pay them out of that bad contract. But even then 0:16:23.400 --> 0:16:25.960 that would just mean they'd be in debt to someone else. 0:16:26.200 --> 0:16:28.960 But at the same time, I was now in too deep, 0:16:29.480 --> 0:16:31.880 Like I had finished this album and I knew the 0:16:31.920 --> 0:16:36.200 album was good and there's no way I can just 0:16:36.400 --> 0:16:42.000 give up. But I was pretty much ready to Do 0:16:42.040 --> 0:16:44.440 you ever think about giving up? Yeah? I was like 0:16:44.720 --> 0:16:47.520 this might not pan out. I might have to live 0:16:47.560 --> 0:16:55.680 the lie, like become a lawyer. Oh my god. And 0:16:55.720 --> 0:17:00.000 then as I was ready to quit, I was drunk, 0:17:00.360 --> 0:17:04.720 passed out somewhere. I got a call and some company 0:17:05.000 --> 0:17:08.359 that I had never heard of wanted to talk to me, 0:17:09.160 --> 0:17:13.400 So I went in. They liked the album, they signed us, 0:17:14.359 --> 0:17:17.280 and literally put out the album and I think like 0:17:17.320 --> 0:17:20.159 two weeks. Map of the Human Soul was released in 0:17:20.200 --> 0:17:24.920 October of two three. Finally, after a year on the show, 0:17:25.760 --> 0:17:29.439 the world was gonna hear Epic Haigh's debut. In the 0:17:29.520 --> 0:17:32.320 hip hop scene, we became huge stars. There was this 0:17:32.440 --> 0:17:36.320 one hip hop like web scene where every hip hop 0:17:36.400 --> 0:17:40.159 kid would go to just you know, get Korean hip 0:17:40.240 --> 0:17:42.760 hop news and stuff, and they would have a yearly 0:17:42.800 --> 0:17:45.960 award thing and we like basically swept like best artists, 0:17:46.000 --> 0:17:49.639 best album, best whatever. Right, But mind you, this is 0:17:49.640 --> 0:17:53.440 a very small number of people at the time, right, 0:17:53.520 --> 0:17:57.879 this is like maybe at most ten thou people. And 0:17:57.920 --> 0:18:01.240 I know this because we sold ten thousand records. In 0:18:02.680 --> 0:18:09.680 mainstream terms, we had completely bombed. We'll be right back. 0:18:33.800 --> 0:18:37.320 Epic Has first album wasn't doing great. We were winning 0:18:37.600 --> 0:18:40.000 this web scene award, but at the same time, like 0:18:40.080 --> 0:18:43.199 we were, you know, tutoring kids and like trying to 0:18:43.880 --> 0:18:47.080 survive and to make matters worse, they found themselves in 0:18:47.160 --> 0:18:50.600 another bad contract. Nothing had really changed because we just 0:18:50.640 --> 0:18:53.800 didn't get paid. They were all working multiple jobs trying 0:18:53.800 --> 0:18:56.359 to make ends meet. It didn't really matter because nobody 0:18:56.400 --> 0:18:59.600 recognized us. But they kept going, hoping that their second 0:18:59.640 --> 0:19:02.680 album would change things. Right after our second album came 0:19:02.720 --> 0:19:05.440 out and within a couple of days, I knew that 0:19:05.680 --> 0:19:09.800 this was gonna fall. WHOA, because you just know, you 0:19:09.840 --> 0:19:14.480 just feel it. You Mith told me that the second 0:19:14.480 --> 0:19:16.920 album did sell better than the first one. I didn't 0:19:16.920 --> 0:19:23.200 take one on the on the cold, but we're still 0:19:23.240 --> 0:19:26.320 talking in relative terms here, as in it sold well 0:19:26.400 --> 0:19:29.280 for an indie album in a niche genre, which hip 0:19:29.280 --> 0:19:32.200 hop was at the time, and the label wasn't really 0:19:32.200 --> 0:19:41.280 satisfied with that. They started working on the third album, 0:19:41.320 --> 0:19:44.119 but they knew that this one was probably their last. 0:19:44.640 --> 0:19:47.720 If this one didn't sell, they'd call it quits. That's 0:19:48.040 --> 0:19:51.760 quickly make our last album. But in the meantime, I 0:19:51.840 --> 0:19:53.800 have a little bit of a plan, and that's when 0:19:53.840 --> 0:19:58.600 I asked the thing. The thing was the taboo thing 0:19:58.640 --> 0:20:02.359 in hip hop going on TV, me appearing on a 0:20:02.440 --> 0:20:07.360 talk show during those times what equaled death in the 0:20:07.440 --> 0:20:11.720 hip hop scene. It was considered like a big no. 0:20:11.680 --> 0:20:23.080 Now says that at this point, the underground versus mainstream 0:20:23.400 --> 0:20:26.360 was a huge issue in the Korean scene. I mean, 0:20:26.720 --> 0:20:30.080 it's the classic hip hop debate. I remember this debate 0:20:30.119 --> 0:20:32.560 from when I was DJ in college radio in California 0:20:32.680 --> 0:20:35.120 back in the early two thousand's. A lot of us 0:20:35.200 --> 0:20:37.880 were kind of suspicious of anyone who got too popular, 0:20:38.440 --> 0:20:41.000 but we weren't going to boycott your records just because 0:20:41.000 --> 0:20:45.520 somebody interviewed you on TV. But hearing these guys describe it, 0:20:45.520 --> 0:20:49.359 it sounds like it was way harsher in Korea. Maybe 0:20:49.359 --> 0:20:52.320 it's because the scene was so small, but people were 0:20:52.480 --> 0:20:58.280 really serious about this stuff. Going on TV was proposes sellouts, 0:20:58.720 --> 0:21:02.320 was the opposite of hip hop. TV promotion was more 0:21:02.359 --> 0:21:05.480 a k pop's lane. At the time, we debuted with 0:21:05.600 --> 0:21:10.040 the most popular Korean k pop groups in history, Tombang 0:21:10.040 --> 0:21:20.360 Shingi TV XQ, literally possibly the most popular group ever 0:21:20.640 --> 0:21:25.919 in Korea before BTS, and that meant that when we 0:21:25.960 --> 0:21:30.119 went to perform at these this show like they wanted 0:21:30.200 --> 0:21:32.920 us off the stage, like as soon as possible if 0:21:32.920 --> 0:21:36.520 they didn't have a stomach for us. Um, you know, 0:21:36.600 --> 0:21:40.280 it just wasn't clicking because nobody wanted us on those shows. 0:21:40.560 --> 0:21:43.320 K pop has always been the bigger, flash year and 0:21:43.400 --> 0:21:46.679 more popular cousin to hip hop, but both genres have 0:21:46.720 --> 0:21:50.840 a history that's pretty deeply intertwined. When did k pop 0:21:50.960 --> 0:21:55.080 as we understand it even really start in Korea, It 0:21:55.200 --> 0:22:01.280 was when the very first K pop band, h O 0:22:01.359 --> 0:22:04.359 t Man Derek debut. There is a lot of debate 0:22:04.480 --> 0:22:07.240 about the exact time when modern day k pop came 0:22:07.280 --> 0:22:10.120 to be, but Utah Lie says that what we can 0:22:10.240 --> 0:22:13.040 say is that by the late nineties, around the same 0:22:13.040 --> 0:22:15.960 time as hip hop was emerging, k pop was already 0:22:15.960 --> 0:22:18.679 in the front seat and it was redefining what it 0:22:18.720 --> 0:22:23.240 meant to be mainstream music in Korea, h O T 0:22:28.320 --> 0:22:35.399 and S E S. We're dominating the Korean music charts. 0:22:38.480 --> 0:22:41.240 This was a programmatic move by a guy named Li 0:22:41.400 --> 0:22:45.240 su Mine, the founder of s M Entertainment. He spent 0:22:45.320 --> 0:22:47.679 some time in the US in the eighties, and he 0:22:47.800 --> 0:22:51.080 was amazed at what MTV was doing. He also took 0:22:51.119 --> 0:22:54.400 notes on some other successful industries, like the j pop 0:22:54.480 --> 0:23:00.040 music scene in Japan and America's motown formula. And it 0:23:00.080 --> 0:23:04.240 wasn't just music industries that he was inspired by. For 0:23:04.480 --> 0:23:09.520 decent that kind of factory music processing fdism. You're saying 0:23:09.560 --> 0:23:13.280 Fordism as in Ford Yeah, right, the did the car, 0:23:13.520 --> 0:23:16.679 that the automobile factory, that the labor, the work is 0:23:16.720 --> 0:23:20.360 clearly divided to each one, just like the motor company, 0:23:20.400 --> 0:23:23.240 you know. And he combined this all together and he 0:23:23.320 --> 0:23:25.920 came up with a sort of factory model for music. 0:23:26.960 --> 0:23:30.480 It worked really well until about the early two thousands. 0:23:30.600 --> 0:23:32.840 Some of the idol band even complained it as a 0:23:32.840 --> 0:23:37.200 slight contract. The biggest K pop idols started to realize 0:23:37.240 --> 0:23:40.280 that the deals they'd signed into weren't all that great, 0:23:41.240 --> 0:23:43.760 and the general public realized that a lot of those 0:23:43.800 --> 0:23:48.160 idols weren't all that talented. That they did not do 0:23:48.440 --> 0:23:51.919 their live performance well on the stage, they only danced 0:23:51.920 --> 0:23:55.520 to the music. So a lot of casual fans started 0:23:55.560 --> 0:23:59.159 to get disillusioned with K pop and this left a 0:23:59.280 --> 0:24:04.720 gap for other genres of music to come in. Also, 0:24:04.760 --> 0:24:08.520 Epicai really came at just the right time. Yes, but 0:24:08.800 --> 0:24:12.600 it was very coincidence because actually that was the very 0:24:12.640 --> 0:24:18.159 period for many Hippan musicians, Dynamic Duo, Drunken Tiger and 0:24:18.240 --> 0:24:21.240 the Epicai at that time. Yes, there was a room 0:24:21.280 --> 0:24:28.439 for that. I get this butt to your second album 0:24:28.480 --> 0:24:33.359 where you're you're almost having to explain the people what 0:24:33.560 --> 0:24:37.960 hip hop is and here's how we're going to do it. Oh, 0:24:38.080 --> 0:24:42.760 it goes beyond that. Really, basically interviews were really boring 0:24:42.800 --> 0:24:45.600 to them because I was giving lectures about like how 0:24:45.680 --> 0:24:49.200 graffiti played a role in it, how b boing played 0:24:49.200 --> 0:24:52.560 a role, like you know, two cuts had to break down, 0:24:52.600 --> 0:24:57.760 like why djaying matters like Herbie Hancock, and like it's 0:24:57.760 --> 0:25:02.320 just like everything had to be a lesson to just 0:25:02.760 --> 0:25:06.320 simply introduce what we do for our living. It's not 0:25:06.400 --> 0:25:09.639 our music, but it has grown into something that we 0:25:09.760 --> 0:25:14.000 can identify with and that we can you know, turn 0:25:14.080 --> 0:25:17.760 into something that we can express our own thoughts and 0:25:17.840 --> 0:25:22.359 voices through right, but this was an entire population that 0:25:22.480 --> 0:25:25.480 was not, you know, they just had never been exposed 0:25:25.480 --> 0:25:30.119 to it. Epicai spent years patiently explaining hip hop on 0:25:30.200 --> 0:25:33.119 any TV show that would have them, all the while 0:25:33.200 --> 0:25:36.960 competing with K pop for stage time, and it really 0:25:37.000 --> 0:25:39.639 wasn't until two thousand five, with the release of the 0:25:39.720 --> 0:25:43.480 third album that anyone started paying attention. Part of that 0:25:43.560 --> 0:25:47.880 new attention was because Tableau was everywhere doing the TV thing. 0:25:48.840 --> 0:25:51.359 The other part was because in this album they started 0:25:51.359 --> 0:25:55.159 incorporating influences from K pop, and since that genre was 0:25:55.200 --> 0:25:58.000 already made stream, it was a little easier for people 0:25:58.040 --> 0:26:01.920 to adjust to Epicai sound. So it was only natural 0:26:02.040 --> 0:26:04.600 that when their third album was released, they were bona 0:26:04.640 --> 0:26:10.440 fide superstars. But it wasn't all love. Hip hop heads 0:26:10.440 --> 0:26:13.840 accused them of selling out to K pop for mainstream approval. 0:26:14.880 --> 0:26:17.400 Their fourth album did get some hip hop fans back 0:26:17.440 --> 0:26:19.520 on their side because they went back to the core, 0:26:19.600 --> 0:26:23.760 underground sound, but that record was censored by the Korean government. 0:26:24.680 --> 0:26:28.840 Some of the songs dealt with things like sex crimes, war, education, 0:26:29.160 --> 0:26:32.320 and religion, and songs that talked about these kind of 0:26:32.359 --> 0:26:36.080 social issues were banned from playing on the radio. This 0:26:36.280 --> 0:26:39.560 would usually be a bad thing, but not for a 0:26:39.640 --> 0:26:44.040 hip hop group. Epic High getting censored actually probably helped 0:26:44.080 --> 0:26:47.080 them rebuild their street crib with that core hip hop audience, 0:26:47.359 --> 0:26:50.520 because it let their fans know that Epic High wasn't 0:26:50.520 --> 0:26:53.639 just about the fame. They were about the messaging, the 0:26:53.760 --> 0:26:57.720