Speaker 1: During most of the Tago scandal, the other two members
Speaker 1: of the group, DJ two Cuts and myth Regin had
Speaker 1: been away serving the mandatory military service. This meant that
Speaker 1: Epic High was more or less on hiatus. It also
Speaker 1: meant that Tableau was left to deal with everything on
Speaker 1: his own. So in November, he released a solo album,
Speaker 1: Fevers in Double Cone, San Maybe then that was my
Speaker 1: first and last. I never released another solo album because
Speaker 1: um art's not worth that much suffering. I will do
Speaker 1: a song here and there, maybe, But I enjoyed just
Speaker 1: doing music with my group because like, I don't want
Speaker 1: music to be that kind of experience for me again.
Speaker 1: Music critics were praising the album. It was raw, it
Speaker 1: was unfiltered. It was a little like reading from Tablow's journal,
Speaker 1: and you could tell through the music that he was
Speaker 1: going through something terrible. My dad had always said that
Speaker 1: he like, he was happy when I came back with
Speaker 1: my solo album and I was starting to make music again,
Speaker 1: but he said, like, why did you make such sad songs?
Speaker 1: And that kind of stuck with me. So there's sort
Speaker 1: of an aside here. In English, Tableau's album is called
Speaker 1: Fever's End, but The Korean title is yell good, which
Speaker 1: literally translates out to fever flowers. That doesn't really make
Speaker 1: any sense in English, but it's a phrase the Korean
Speaker 1: people use for the spots in your skin that show
Speaker 1: up when your fever is broken and it's at its
Speaker 1: absolute worst, and in a sort of poetic sense, it's
Speaker 1: like a sign that things can only get better from there.
Speaker 1: And that was the kind of hope that Tableau's dad
Speaker 1: had for him, that everything he was feeling now was
Speaker 1: a sign that the worst was behind him, that he
Speaker 1: should move on from Tanjanio and be happy. But in
Speaker 1: a matter of months, the man who told him that
Speaker 1: his father suddenly passed away. What was the funeral like?
Speaker 1: Child going often Jeeneen myth Regin the other rapper and
Speaker 1: epic high I wouldn't even chere. M m Mithra said
Speaker 1: that he had never gone to a funeral of a
Speaker 1: close friend before. He used to see Tablow's father a lot,
Speaker 1: and he wanted to comfort Tableau, but he didn't really
Speaker 1: know how. This was also the first time in a
Speaker 1: long time that all three members of the group we're
Speaker 1: in one room together. What was he like when you
Speaker 1: got there? Oh? Say Song him, didn't go touch it
Speaker 1: on your jaw. Two Cuts, the DJ of the group,
Speaker 1: topped up hill. I'm catching motan done hung you know.
Speaker 1: Dot two Cut said that he was mad at himself.
Speaker 1: Epic High had always been there for each other, but
Speaker 1: his being away in the military meant that he couldn't,
Speaker 1: and he felt like that had put a burden on Tableau.
Speaker 1: And this is real. I've seen footage of the funeral.
Speaker 1: Mithra and two cuts or buy Tableau's side. They helped
Speaker 1: carry the casket. Tableau's wife and his mom are also there,
Speaker 1: and everyone looks incredibly sad, But the way Tableau looked
Speaker 1: was different. People had seen Tableau sad before he cried
Speaker 1: in the documentary when he went to Stanford. It was
Speaker 1: something beyond just sadness. He looks numb. My dad died
Speaker 1: of this and I don't even know what this is.
Speaker 1: H they killed him, I'm sure of that. Two Cuts
Speaker 1: and Mithra agree with Tableau that this death was because
Speaker 1: of what Tagno had done. They wanted to give Tableau
Speaker 1: time to heal from everything. Music was the last thing
Speaker 1: on their minds. Right after my dad passed away, uh
Speaker 1: like two or three days after I went into the
Speaker 1: studio and made an album with Epecai. It's hard to
Speaker 1: imagine the same three friends who were just at a
Speaker 1: funeral going into a studio days later to make music.
Speaker 1: But for Tableau, this was the only way he knew
Speaker 1: how to cope. Epicchai was finally back in the studio
Speaker 1: working on music again, doing the thing that brought them
Speaker 1: together in the first place, and it got them to
Speaker 1: this point. Then a few months later the album dropped
Speaker 1: and it was not what people expected. The album was
Speaker 1: called it was a full one from fevers In and
Speaker 1: that was on purpose. So those two albums coupled together
Speaker 1: are like a perfect like documentation of like what must
Speaker 1: be going through someone's head when they experienced something like
Speaker 1: really difficult and then try everything possible to like escape
Speaker 1: it or to avoid it. One Tableau and Epic High
Speaker 1: tried to bottle his dad's optimism and reclaim the time
Speaker 1: and the energy and the youth that they lost in
Speaker 1: that scandal. But moving on wasn't going to be so easy,
Speaker 1: partially because the conspiracy had become bigger than Tableau. Even
Speaker 1: though the Tajanio Forum was now relatively small, their model
Speaker 1: for organizing followers was spreading Tajanio didn't get what they wanted,
Speaker 1: but they did set a blueprint of how a small
Speaker 1: rumor can start online and transform into a global movement.
Speaker 1: It also became a test case for the legacy of
Speaker 1: our lives online, how we all have to reckon with
Speaker 1: whatever we do lasting forever on the Internet. And maybe,
Speaker 1: if we've been paying attention, tableau story could have acted
Speaker 1: as a warning sign for all of us of FIP hop.
Speaker 1: What my Name? I can writing my book saw the
Speaker 1: first time the mask Yeah from Vice and I heart
Speaker 1: this is authentic. I'm XR Thomas Episode eight Fever Flowers.
Speaker 1: When Epic Hies album came out in October of two
Speaker 1: thousand twelve, Tableau's fans and his record label, we're not happy.
Speaker 1: Our core fans hated it. They say that it's the
Speaker 1: worst album I've ever made, and coming right after Fever's end,
Speaker 1: they can't believe it right, they can't believe it's the
Speaker 1: same person. Juan and count two Cuts says the fans
Speaker 1: didn't like their album because it was different from what
Speaker 1: people were expecting before this. Epic High was known for
Speaker 1: being subversive. This is the group that got banned from
Speaker 1: radio airplay for lyrics criticizing society to directly I think
Speaker 1: we're just reckless. They had lyrics about religion and depression
Speaker 1: and things that everyday Korean kids were going through, but
Speaker 1: was none of that. I didn't want to talk about
Speaker 1: anything introspective because I had so many things that would,
Speaker 1: you know, may possibly destroy me again, right if I
Speaker 1: started thinking so all all these songs are just really
Speaker 1: really keen pop almost. I think I just kind of
Speaker 1: wanted to avoid it. But I also had to make
Speaker 1: that album to survive. Part of that survival meant getting
Speaker 1: back to public life slowly. At first, Tableau stayed away
Speaker 1: from any deep interviews and he was really hesitant about
Speaker 1: live TV. If you did see him on TV, it
Speaker 1: was almost definitely a prerecorded performance. He still wasn't sure
Speaker 1: if he could handle the pressure, and he really wasn't
Speaker 1: interested in going back to being all over the media again.
Speaker 1: But then by Sheer accident, things changed. Epic High had
Speaker 1: just started doing concerts again, and in China we were
Speaker 1: We did a show and afterwards we were having a
Speaker 1: drink and I tried to jump kick Mithra I slipped
Speaker 1: on an ice cube, landed on my shoulder, instantly broke it.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, very bad, like just bones shattered. Tableau
Speaker 1: was rushed to a nearby hospital and they put him
Speaker 1: on some pretty serious pain killers, and then at that moment,
Speaker 1: out of all times, he got a proposal. And then
Speaker 1: we're rolling me into the surgery and my managers like,
Speaker 1: you know, this show came in and I'm like, do
Speaker 1: you have to choose now? Like I don't know what
Speaker 1: you're saying. He's like, we have to give him an
Speaker 1: answer like now, and I was like, okay, whatever, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I just do it. And then I came out and
Speaker 1: I had agreed to do this show, and that is
Speaker 1: how Tableau ended up on the Return of Superman. This
Speaker 1: was a reality TV show where celebrity dads are left
Speaker 1: alone with their kids for a couple of days while
Speaker 1: their wives take some time off. The whole premise is
Speaker 1: loki kind of sexist, but the idea was that dads
Speaker 1: would probably struggle with basic household tasks or talking to
Speaker 1: their kids, and so it would be funny. But for
Speaker 1: Tableau it didn't quite work out that way because he
Speaker 1: has a really good relationship with his daughter Lan. The
Speaker 1: show was a big step for Tableau because he still
Speaker 1: wasn't really comfortable with being famous, but having his family
Speaker 1: there made things easier, and actually his interaction with his
Speaker 1: daughter ended up being one of the most memorable parts
Speaker 1: of the show. There's this one scenes from how to
Speaker 1: showing off her stuffed animals. She's got horses and zebra,
Speaker 1: and she's explaining to Tableau that each one of them
Speaker 1: represents a different member of the family. So Tableau asks, okay,
Speaker 1: is the entire family there, and had says yes, and
Speaker 1: Tableau says, well, where's the grandpa. The camera hands over
Speaker 1: to Hat and she says, Grandpa, Grandpa's gone to heaven,
Speaker 1: and there's this silence, and then, totally unprompted, how It
Speaker 1: gets up and hugs her dad Carboy. This show brought
Speaker 1: in a whole different audience. People who might not be
Speaker 1: interested in Tableau's music or even his grades at Stanford,
Speaker 1: interested in him as a dad. I didn't show my
Speaker 1: daughter's face for like three years. I was very private after,
Speaker 1: you know, sheltering them for so long and trying to
Speaker 1: hide them. And it's weird watching this show because you
Speaker 1: realize how much time it passed. Remember the first time
Speaker 1: that Tableau realized something was wrong, was when Tao member
Speaker 1: started tweeting at him when he posted a picture from
Speaker 1: the hospital when his baby was born. That baby was
Speaker 1: now walking around and talking on TV, and Tableau was
Speaker 1: now in his thirties and he was just straight up
Speaker 1: a different person. I often feel like we are always
Speaker 1: watching celebrities suffer something and get crushed by it. We
Speaker 1: don't ever really get a chance to see like chapter
Speaker 1: two of that life, at least in my mind. Dedicated
Speaker 1: in my career too to showing that, to showing how
Speaker 1: there is possibility of a great chapter two if you
Speaker 1: don't let chapter one be the end, right, and really,
Speaker 1: this chapter two of Tableau's career looks pretty good. Epic
Speaker 1: HAIs celebrated being around for a decade. Over the next
Speaker 1: few years, they went on tour and they even made
Speaker 1: it back to the States. They not only hit up
Speaker 1: South By Southwest, but they got on stage of Coachella.
Speaker 1: Tableau stopped going on the Return of Superman, but then
Speaker 1: he joined a different program, a rap competition show called
Speaker 1: Show Me the Money What. Tableau was a producer throughout
Speaker 1: their career. Epic High has released ten studio albums, and
Speaker 1: in that time they've collaborated with some major artists not
Speaker 1: just in Korea but from all over the place. Baby Joe, Joey, Badass,
Speaker 1: Eric now dumbfounded Galian. The list just goes on. In
Speaker 1: the relatively short history of Korean hip hop, Tableau and
Speaker 1: Epic High are now elder statesmen, and their music has
Speaker 1: been massively influential for the younger generation of Korean musicians,
Speaker 1: including what might possibly be the biggest band in the world,
Speaker 1: BTS Base bts IS, RM and Sugar have both spoken
Speaker 1: pretty openly over the years about being inspired by Epic High,
Speaker 1: and even though their group is known for K pop,
Speaker 1: they are influenced by lyrical hip hop that directly speaks
Speaker 1: to broader issues, which is what Epic Hai has been
Speaker 1: doing since day one, and Yungi and RM have said
Speaker 1: that Epic High's song Fly is the thing that made
Speaker 1: them want to try wrap. But if you ask Tableau
Speaker 1: about all this, he's a little shy. I'm sure they
Speaker 1: would have discovered music, they're obviously um in love with it,
Speaker 1: and they would have become musicians regardless. It's still gonna
Speaker 1: be wild to hear that, though. I think what's most flattering, though,
Speaker 1: is that their lyrical content and what they're trying to
Speaker 1: do through music, just trying their best to be like
Speaker 1: a good influence. I'm certain that now kids are listening
Speaker 1: to bts the way they were listening to epic Ai right,
Speaker 1: and sheer amount of kids has exponentially grown, and one
Speaker 1: of those kids are gonna do something cool too. Tableau
Speaker 1: and epic Hi have come a long way from couch
Speaker 1: surfing and struggling to pay for dinner. They have a
Speaker 1: real legacy now, even if Tableau doesn't quite know what
Speaker 1: that means for him personally. And also, like I've feel
Speaker 1: like hip hop and Korea is so young that it's
Speaker 1: just weird to already like have our mount rushmore. You know,
Speaker 1: we'll be right. Back when Tablo got started in Korea,
Speaker 1: hip hop was really niche. But now, more than a
Speaker 1: decade later, Korean hip hop is just part of the
Speaker 1: normal mainstream landscape. In a lot of ways, the industry
Speaker 1: has caught up to what people like Tableau were already doing.
Speaker 1: Back when he was getting started, people in the music
Speaker 1: industry might have called Tableau a quote unquote bedroom producer.
Speaker 1: This was a word that people use for artists who
Speaker 1: were making tracks on cheap equipment or just their laptops.
Speaker 1: But nowadays the term is almost irrelevant because just about
Speaker 1: every producer is starting out from their bedroom. And we
Speaker 1: now take it for granted that thanks to social media,
Speaker 1: anyone could be a star. How many guys and I
Speaker 1: for a little time in Canada and major artists have
Speaker 1: adapted to that too. Musicians and artists have started to
Speaker 1: open up their lives on social media, and we're talking
Speaker 1: seven coverage people cooking or doing their makeup or whatever.
Speaker 1: He I just wanted to pop in and say hello,
Speaker 1: I am live. It is bide minded, live with money, alright,
Speaker 1: So let me cut this cucumber. Okay, I'm looking at
Speaker 1: the d MS, but I actually can't because it goes
Speaker 1: so fast because you guys are so amazing. There used
Speaker 1: to be like this distance between the artists and the fans,
Speaker 1: Professor hedging Lee Again. The artists didn't feel like it
Speaker 1: was their job to use social media up to broadcast
Speaker 1: everything that they're doing or to like express their feelings.
Speaker 1: They would use the social media as a tool for
Speaker 1: promotional purposes. But now we're seeing the artists using these
Speaker 1: tools to just casually talk with the fans, not necessarily
Speaker 1: inviting a conversation, but at least kind of revealing their
Speaker 1: private self a little bit, and I think that has
Speaker 1: allowed the fans to kind of feel like they're getting
Speaker 1: to know the artists at a more personal level. But
Speaker 1: that amount of access and interaction also means that fans
Speaker 1: can criticize artists directly like never before. And today we're
Speaker 1: counting down our picks for the top ten celabs who
Speaker 1: are constantly getting canceled. Christie he Can also recently try
Speaker 1: to show off the results of her eyebrow transplant, and
Speaker 1: her critics were appalled by her rich people problems. This
Speaker 1: this is a serious situation. I'm just hard to al
Speaker 1: Ovid has been dead since two thousand and three, and
Speaker 1: the fact that Korean artists are now more global than
Speaker 1: ever means they're being exposed to new demands from fans
Speaker 1: in other countries to use their platform for something. We're
Speaker 1: not satisfied with just art. We want to know who
Speaker 1: these artists really are. This might be weird and other
Speaker 1: genres of music, but within the culture of hip hop
Speaker 1: that's always kind of been there, It's just more serious now.
Speaker 1: I feel like that's one of the tough things about
Speaker 1: hip hop, right We value maybe above all else being real,
Speaker 1: being authentic, But what counts for quote unquote real is
Speaker 1: actually fairly rigid, what kind of real that we are
Speaker 1: interested in. There, there's a real way to dress, you know,
Speaker 1: there's an authentic way to address it is an authentic
Speaker 1: way to talk. And if you don't do that, then
Speaker 1: it's just who is this nerd? Who is this outsider?
Speaker 1: And so you should adjust yourself accordingly. But then the
Speaker 1: flip of that is if you're adjusting yourself, that's not real. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And also the concept of real just constantly changes. And
Speaker 1: this isn't just like just in Korea. Like remember when
Speaker 1: Kanye came out and how that was like the moment
Speaker 1: where we had to like the world had to decide
Speaker 1: are you going to be for or are you going
Speaker 1: to be for Kanye? Because in all ways they were different.
Speaker 1: And then Kanye happened and everyone just started, you know,
Speaker 1: wearing like skinny jeans, And when that happened, I think
Speaker 1: a lot of Korean kids kind of felt like, oh, yes,
Speaker 1: because now Kanye is dressing like us. Really yeah, And
Speaker 1: there's something really interesting about the way that Tableau talks
Speaker 1: about culture shifting over time, about who gets to be
Speaker 1: real and what authentic is, because I think in some ways,
Speaker 1: hip hop might be the one culture that makes us
Speaker 1: ask all these uncomfortable questions. Hip hop is perhaps the
Speaker 1: one genre in which authenticity is at a premium, Professor
Speaker 1: Que Tugley, if it if it even comes across as
Speaker 1: quote unquote fake or not real or inauthentic, you're done. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you will not be hip hop. Yeah, questionable. Authenticity always matters.
Speaker 1: Where do you draw the line between appreciation or learning
Speaker 1: from our hybridization and appropriation? It is very difficult to answer.
Speaker 1: But if you only like imitate something that original hip
Speaker 1: hop musicians are doing without understanding why they are doing
Speaker 1: or without showing your own interpretation, I may consider it
Speaker 1: as a cultural appropriation because if you if I call
Speaker 1: it as a cultural hybridization, it means that you understand
Speaker 1: the different culture and try to mix with the culture,
Speaker 1: with the different culture with your own to create something
Speaker 1: different from your original culture as well as the original
Speaker 1: hip hop music. For example, there's a reason why I
Speaker 1: waited to the last episode before even mentioning cultural appropriation.
Speaker 1: It's not that I think the topic needs to be avoided.
Speaker 1: It's that there's something particularly American about the way that
Speaker 1: we tend to ask questions about whether or not somebody's
Speaker 1: done enough homework to properly understand the culture. Topics like
Speaker 1: culture and authenticity, these are difficult things to talk about,
Speaker 1: and in theory, this is where the Internet should come in.
Speaker 1: Thanks the message boards and social media, we have a
Speaker 1: convenient way to have conversations where at the very least
Speaker 1: you can learn how other people think. But as we
Speaker 1: saw with Tajnyo, an online conversation can also quickly become
Speaker 1: an online mob. I think what was interesting about the
Speaker 1: taching your case is that people were using the internet
Speaker 1: asked a way to like uncover truth or whatever truth
Speaker 1: that they had in mind right and thinking that that
Speaker 1: was their way of pursuing justice. And I wonder if
Speaker 1: that's what we're seeing with so many like fringe groups
Speaker 1: in the United States. Fringe groups are organizing in a
Speaker 1: pretty similar model to the way that Tajanio did on Reddit, forums,
Speaker 1: telegram channels, discords. They're demanding the truth from politicians, the media,
Speaker 1: and really anyone that they believe is lying. And just
Speaker 1: like with Tajano, as those ideas become more mainstream, it
Speaker 1: becomes harder to call them fringe groups there, you know,
Speaker 1: just groups with questions and alternative facts. And as they
Speaker 1: continue to spread misinformation, they gain more followers. And look,
Speaker 1: it's probably a little stream to say that we can
Speaker 1: draw a straight line from Taijanyo to Q and on,
Speaker 1: But both groups share not only a mission, but a methodology.
Speaker 1: A distributed, decentralized group with anonymous leaders who can be
Speaker 1: swapped in or out at any time, that relentlessly pursues
Speaker 1: their version of justice and truth. Truth is such a
Speaker 1: subjective thing right now. My truth might not be the
Speaker 1: same as yours. So if that's the world that we're
Speaker 1: living in, then how can we survive together? How can
Speaker 1: we coexist? This question from Professor Hedging sticks with me,
Speaker 1: because listen, it's easy to look at the conspiracy theories
Speaker 1: like Taijano and Q and on and look at the
Speaker 1: frankly bonkers research that they're doing and laugh and say, yo,
Speaker 1: these people, they lost their minds. Just forget about them
Speaker 1: and just move on. But the reality is is that
Speaker 1: these people are victims of misinformation. And that's not me
Speaker 1: telling you that you have to feel sorry for them.
Speaker 1: I'm just saying we have to live with these people, because,
Speaker 1: if anything, the story of Tajano is a warning that
Speaker 1: these pursuits of truth and justice can start to warp
Speaker 1: our ability to understand each other as people. Tablet was
Speaker 1: just one of the first people to experience with the future.
Speaker 1: Was gonna look like I was in the hospital because
Speaker 1: of my dad. And this mom and her daughter, like
Speaker 1: her middle school, high school daughter are walking by, and
Speaker 1: this the mom just comes straight to my face as
Speaker 1: if I'm not an actual person but maybe like a
Speaker 1: character or an avatar. Uh, And right to my face
Speaker 1: says this guy. This isn't this the guy that lied
Speaker 1: about his school, like right to my face, to her daughter.
Speaker 1: And these things were happening constantly. Jesus, you know all
Speaker 1: the articles then and after that have described this as
Speaker 1: like an online phenomenon, right as problems with the Internet,
Speaker 1: like as if fake news is confined to this like
Speaker 1: digital space, and it certainly is not. It is so
Speaker 1: connected to the real world. The longer we neglect that,
Speaker 1: the harder it will become to do anything about it.
Speaker 1: It is hard to put into words what exactly we
Speaker 1: witnessed today because we have not seen this before. Thousands
Speaker 1: storming the Capitol after a rally with President Trump sucking
Speaker 1: he man, glad to see you guys. You guys are
Speaker 1: fucking patriots. Look at this guy's got blood. And maybe,
Speaker 1: just maybe, if we've been paying attention at the very least,
Speaker 1: we wouldn't have been so unprepared when missing from Nation
Speaker 1: grew to extremism and spilled offline into real life consequences.
Speaker 1: It's now been more than ten years since Tableau's life
Speaker 1: was changed forever by Tajanio. When you talk about sort
Speaker 1: of the effects on you, you sort of seemed to
Speaker 1: be more or less okay with that, and even when
Speaker 1: it was happening, it seemed like you'd sort of accepted, Okay,
Speaker 1: my my career is over, okay, And then when it
Speaker 1: spread to your family, that was when it was okay. Now,
Speaker 1: like fighting this. You also told me about how it
Speaker 1: affected your brother. What what kind of conversations do you
Speaker 1: have with your brother now? I mean ten years on
Speaker 1: and we don't talk about this really, Yeah, we don't
Speaker 1: talk all. Lot of it just brings up too many
Speaker 1: different things, you know. Yeah, after my dad passed away, honestly, um,
Speaker 1: our family has not been the same. We don't talk
Speaker 1: that much anymore. It's just yeah, because it just brings
Speaker 1: up too much mhm, especially in this case, we just
Speaker 1: don't discuss it. It's just it's connected to too many ah,
Speaker 1: too many different bad things. I guess, so we are,
Speaker 1: you know, we don't talk that much anymore because there's
Speaker 1: nothing we can talk about to avoid talking about this.
Speaker 1: You know, it's our biggest shared memory, which sucks, but
Speaker 1: it's impossible for us to not talk about this, so
Speaker 1: we just talk about stupid things, you know, irrelevant and
Speaker 1: possib things. I guess. I don't think I've ever talked
Speaker 1: about this with my brother and my sister. I've talked
Speaker 1: about it with my sister, she was sort of detached,
Speaker 1: but I don't think I've ever talked to my mom
Speaker 1: about it or after this. Do you think there's a
Speaker 1: point where you'll be able to do that? Uh? I
Speaker 1: don't think I really want to, um, to tell you
Speaker 1: the frank truth, like I intended to never revisit this. Uh.
Speaker 1: And I told the people that I work with. I
Speaker 1: told my team, you know, like, this is just something
Speaker 1: I don't want to discuss. I don't want to think about.
Speaker 1: I'm doing. I'm doing much better now with these memories
Speaker 1: tucked away right, and Uh, I had a conversation with
Speaker 1: like my you know, my manager, and like I I
Speaker 1: I started seeing like this world, you know, I seeing
Speaker 1: things happen that just constantly reminded me of what I
Speaker 1: went through and noticing how it's not getting any better.
Speaker 1: And now that my daughter is uh you know, she's
Speaker 1: she's gonna she's gonna have to live in that world. Uh.
Speaker 1: And I was telling my manager, you know, like I
Speaker 1: really don't want to, but I think I need to
Speaker 1: start talking about like what I experienced. I need to
Speaker 1: uh start you know, revisiting it because you know, I
Speaker 1: know that this isn't going to change anything. I know
Speaker 1: that it's not gonna like just one day snap all
Speaker 1: these problems away. At the very least, Tableau can keep
Speaker 1: moving forward. Epic High just dropped their latest album. There
Speaker 1: was a lot of anticipation for this one, but even
Speaker 1: Tableau surprised not only the critical reception but the fans.
Speaker 1: People are saying that this is their favorite Epic High
Speaker 1: album ever. But I don't think this is surprising at all.
Speaker 1: For almost twenty years, Epic High has been proving themselves.
Speaker 1: In their first albums, they were trying to teach an
Speaker 1: entire country what hip hop even was. Then they wanted
Speaker 1: to prove that they could do pop music too. Then
Speaker 1: they had to prove that, despite the scandals and the haters,
Speaker 1: that they still had it. But they don't have to
Speaker 1: prove anything anymore, and today Tableau is known for being
Speaker 1: Tableau the Dad, just as much as he's known for
Speaker 1: his music. Would you rather be stuck in a bast
Speaker 1: room for twenty four hours or be stuck in our
Speaker 1: car for twenty four hours? Is the car moving? When
Speaker 1: you search Tableau and Epic High on YouTube, you'll see
Speaker 1: his music, but you'll also see even more clips of
Speaker 1: him hanging out with the other members, telling stories about
Speaker 1: his family and just joking around. And he's cool with that.
Speaker 1: The Tajano thing is more in the background now. He
Speaker 1: tries not to think about it too much, but it's
Speaker 1: hard because people still bring it up. Anytime there's a
Speaker 1: rumor or an online accusation, people compared to Tableau and
Speaker 1: start talking about Tajano all over again. For the longest time,
Speaker 1: Tableau was trying to take the advice of everyone around
Speaker 1: him to put all that in the past behind him.
Speaker 1: But he knows that's not happening. It made me wonder something,
Speaker 1: are you worried talking about this again? It's like kicking
Speaker 1: the hornet's nest again. Um. I mean, like, but but
Speaker 1: you know, I gotta kick the hornet's nest for people
Speaker 1: to realize there's hornets here. M Uh. Whether or not
Speaker 1: this will kick the hornet's nest again, I don't know.
Speaker 1: It's actually something I didn't really that didn't really occur
Speaker 1: to me until now until yeah, you mentioned it and
Speaker 1: kind of scares me too. Yeah, of course, because now
Speaker 1: my daughter can google stuff and she she has a
Speaker 1: she has a phone, like she has friends with phones,
Speaker 1: and um, yeah, of course, of course. Uh, it's something
Speaker 1: that worries me. Like this experience I had resulted in
Speaker 1: nothing good. I didn't like overcome this. I didn't like
Speaker 1: have a big victory just because these people went to jail.
Speaker 1: I didn't. I wasn't vindicated like um, people want to say,
Speaker 1: like there was nothing really good about this, no matter
Speaker 1: how you spend it. I lost too much that I
Speaker 1: can't get back. Uh, So there's nothing good about it.
Speaker 1: But I don't want to leave it at that. It
Speaker 1: sounds to me like you're saying you hope that people
Speaker 1: should be able to learn from this, but you don't
Speaker 1: sound optimistic that they will. Yeah, but I gotta try
Speaker 1: being real. I think Tableau is doing what a lot
Speaker 1: of us do when we go through something terrible. You
Speaker 1: know that phrase everything happens for a reason. And you
Speaker 1: know how when somebody tells you that when you're going
Speaker 1: through it that it just feels kind of empty. Well,
Speaker 1: Tableau is living through that, and he's hoping it's true.
Speaker 1: Maybe it happened because I uh, I have the ability
Speaker 1: to to use it in some way, like in some
Speaker 1: positive way, and if it becomes uh, you know, like
Speaker 1: a conversation between people about misinformation about um you know what,
Speaker 1: how easy we trust things, we believe things. It's just
Speaker 1: just the various different things that are like that are
Speaker 1: a part of this story. I feel like some of
Speaker 1: it could lead to something good. The fever is not over,
Speaker 1: not by a long shot. Looking around at the world online,
Speaker 1: it might get worse, but maybe someday, well at least
Speaker 1: get to see the flowers. M h Authentic is a
Speaker 1: production of Vice Audio and I Heart Podcast Network special
Speaker 1: thanks to Junior Khn from Vice Korea, Spion Home Threes Reez,
Speaker 1: Nina Sudra and Kim Pierce. Also thanks to Stacy Harrington,
Speaker 1: Samantha Rodriguez, and Jason Guberman. We'd also like to thank
Speaker 1: Adi Nam, Brian Gold and Jim Are. Translators for the
Speaker 1: series were Sarah Ree and Jen Quan. Authentic is produced
Speaker 1: and reported by Stephanie Kryuki, Minji Coop, Kate Osborne and
Speaker 1: myself with Janet, Stephanie Brown and Sam Egan. Sound design
Speaker 1: and original music composition by Kyle Murdock with additional support
Speaker 1: from Natasha Jacobs. Our supervising producer is Janet Lee, editing
Speaker 1: from Lazy Roberts, fact checking by Minji Ku and Nicole Pasuka.
Speaker 1: This episode features music from Epic High from their album
Speaker 1: Fever's End, distributed by y G Entertainment. This episode also
Speaker 1: features music from BTS of Big Hit Entertainment. Thanks also
Speaker 1: to KBS for their show The Return of Superman. Our
Speaker 1: executive producer and VP Advice audio is Kate Osborne from
Speaker 1: I Heart Podcast Network. Executive producers Nikki e Tor and
Speaker 1: Lindsay Hoffman. I'm Dexter Thomas. Make sure to subscribe wherever
Speaker 1: you get your podcast so you don't miss an episode
Speaker 1: and if you dig it, give us a rating and
Speaker 1: a review.