Kpop Celebrity News

How do you feel about starting activities and appearing on the music programs again?
I like it. I think fans wanted it more than I did. They wanted to see me on music broadcasts again, and to finally be back again feels good. And I feel thankful.

How was it singing and dancing onstage on music programs by yourself?
I did a lot of fan meetings over the last year so it wasn’t awkward to be on the stage by myself, but doing music broadcasts by myself for the first time was a little hard. The camera was focused on me all the time so I didn’t know how to control my eyes. (laughs) And before then my dance routine was a bit aggressive since I only got to sing a few parts, but now that I have to sing from the start to the end, I got to be able to balance everything.

“I once worried about popularity.”

You would have many thoughts, making the album and being onstage by yourself; which parts did you emphasize for the “Abandoned” stage?
First of all, I thought the choreography that the choreographer arranged suited the song well. The only problem was, “Is it possible for me to sing it live?" So I don’t dance for the 2nd half of the song. It has a lot of skipping. But I wanted to show that I can dance as well as the dancers, or even better than them.

Frankly, we were expecting some dynamic stage with acrobatics and b-boying. Is there any reason why you’ve arranged your choreography as calm and tightened for every single move?
Um, people already know that I’m capable of acrobatics. They’ve seen it enough, so I thought it’d be obvious. And I love the dance style of my choreographer. I can’t describe it with words, but it feels like it has emotions within it. It doesn’t feel like “choreography,” and it has some kind of strong and restrained feeling.

It was impressive that Dok2 and The Quiett, who participated in your album, came up on the stage with you on your first week of Music Bank when they announced the winner. They are musicians that you wouldn’t be able to see on ordinary K-pop ranking programs.
Dok2 used to appear on TV when he was active on the team “All Black”, but he hasn’t ever since. I felt we are getting that first place award together since I won with the song that Dok2 featured on for me. Dok2 raps and composes well. He is a great guy. I feel bad that not many people are aware of that, and I wish people got to know him better. Dok2 introduced me to The Quiett hyung, and we got really close afterwards. He is also a great guy. His music style is really different from Dok2’s but their interest towards hiphop is the same.

Obviously this album is very important since it’s your official comeback as a solo artist. You could’ve worked with well-known producer or do grand promotions, etc., but instead, Take A Deeper Look looks like it’s an album about Jay Park’s “family,” or you could say this album is a collaboration between AOM’s Jay Park and The Quiett and Dok2 from ILLIONAIRE records. In this case, it was completely different from what people might’ve expected or anticipated.
Of course, but to be honest I didn’t really keep those thoughts in mind because I couldn’t imagine what people were expecting. First of all, people don’t really know about me. They’ve seen me as part of a team, so I’m sure they had no ideas about what kind of music I like and what kind of music I would bring out. Plus, it’s not going to be interesting if I bring out the same thing as before, so I did what I wanted to do 100%. I wrote all of the songs, worked with the people that I wanted to work with, I kind of wanted to show that I can nail it even if I don’t work with famous people. People like my friend Cha Cha who composes together with me, Dok2, or Quiett hyung are not famous people. Oh, I mean they ARE famous, but they’re definitely not like will.i.am. (laughs)

Weren’t you worried?
I was a little worried to be honest because my album is quite different from the music nowadays, and I felt like this album lacked mass appeal.

I heard you are worried about low “music source points” compared to your high “album points”, what would you say about it?
Uh...to be honest, the song isn’t that popular. (laughs) I felt bad at first. However, other musicians and dancers said “the song is good” although it’s not so popular, so I feel really good now, and I’m not ashamed of it. I think [to be able to acknowledged by other musicians] is the most important.

About that, don’t you feel a little disappointed [in the lack of promotion]? For example, it’d be great to have more opportunities to spread the song to the public, not just limited to the fans who are buying the albums.
I guess if I can make some appearances on the variety shows, it might be able to spread more, but I don’t have much time since I’m currently shooting the movie Mr. Idol, and it’s mostly taking place in the provinces. So I’m satisfied with how far I’ve gotten for this album, but frankly, this was way beyond my expectations. I never imagined this album could became big like this. Actually I thought the song would be a hit instead of the album, so it’s completely the opposite. (laughs)

Are the music sources and album industry quite different from when you were active 2 years ago?
Very different. Seriously, it keeps changing. If you’re not 2NE1, it’ll keep changing. So I should be part of 2NE1 now. (laughs)

“I would try to use unique expressions when I’m writing a song.”

Which musical direction did you take for this album? Or what kind of direction do you have fundamentally?
Well, I listen to various kinds of music such as electro dance, pop, and especially 90s R&B and hipop which are my favorite. So what I’m doing now is R&B and hiphop, and I would like to prove that I’m capable of doing them well. I know there are not so many people who love R&B and hiphop, but I want more people to like my music. I should do better.

So you are trying to convince others of what you’re aiming for, instead of doing what others want you to do.
Because that is not interesting. When I’m doing music, I should be able to have fun with it. If I do what I want to do, and as long as the music is good, it will attract many people eventually. I want to keep it this way, but I got to improve my music and my skills, step by step. I have lot of things that I wanted to show, I still haven’t revealed so many things.

For a male vocal, yours is very uniquely “sweet.” Do you like your own vocals?
Not really. The words “sweet voice” to me refer to a baby’s voice. I think I don’t like it because I’m not a good singer. If I was a good singer I would love those words. I have to keep practicing.

Your English lyrics have many literary expressions, but they’re completely different from your Korean lyrics. What’s it like to write the lyrics for your whole album?
Personally, writing lyrics in Korean is still tough for me. I don’t know much vocabulary so there were some repeated parts, and I started to write raps since I was in middle school so I used quite a lot of unique expressions. I’m always trying to make clever expressions, but some people say it’s very immature. (laughs)

From the song “Abandoned” there are some eye-catching parts such as “Wherever you go, I follow you like a dog,” and “Where would you go leaving me here? I’m dying alone, why don’t you care?” Have you ever thought that those expressions are not very commonly used for songs in general?
Dogs usually follow their owners, so I thought of that when I wrote that part. And I put the part “Why don’t you care?” because it rhymes [with the previous part]. Singing is pretty much the same as speaking, and I don’t see any rules about not using these types of expressions.

The first track is “Touch the Sky”, the song that you worked on with The Quiett, and it made us wonder how you could manage to write a song that has such cheerful, floating-on-air type of feelings rather than a strong and aggressive song.
I’m the type of person who tries to have positive thoughts. Things are tough, but that won’t last forever, so, that song is the first track since it has a good message. I wanted the listeners to get cheerful as soon as they listen to it, this is sort of “feel good” music. That’s the type of song I wanted to do.

However, the song “Level 1000” that you worked on with Dok2 is the complete opposite. You’ve actually encountered tough situations just like your lyrics, “No pain no gain/ I live even when shot by a bullet, even if you block my way I bust my way through.” How was it possible for you to make “feel good” music rather than trying to “prove yourself to the world” when you went through such a time?
Um...I don’t know. Maybe because I always “seize the day”? I think it’s possible because I enjoy dancing, singing, and rapping. Because I just love music.

Although you’re trying to live by doing "feel good music", every single speech and action of yours becomes an issue, and you get many comments for them. What do you think of that?
I don’t really mind. I’ve been getting a lot of hate comments from articles and their replies. (laughs) It’s because they don’t really know me in person. If it was from my close friends, it would hurt my feelings, but it’s from complete strangers. I used to feel bad about it. I couldn’t agree with something that is not true, and that’s probably why some people misunderstood me on certain things. I wanted to clear things out before then, but now it’s all good as long as people around me understand me clearly.

But it must be depressing and hard to deal with when you are aware that some random people might hate you. Since you have the career that deals with the public, you might feel a “I hope they don’t hate me” kind of thing.
But it’s impossible to have everyone like me. Frankly, there will be haters, or maybe they simply just don’t like me. It depends on their taste. Some might hate me, some might hate some other person, I can’t really do much about it.

Your mentality must be very strong in order to have that kind of mindset.
Um...To be honest, it was really tough when I came to Korea for the first time as a trainee. So tough that I cried and called my mom everyday for 2 weeks and told her that I wanted to go back to home. Some laughed at me because I was 19 years old back then, but I can confidently say that it was really hard for me. (laughs) It’s because, back then I didn’t know what I was doing. So I worked out really hard, I used to run 30 tracks in the middle of the night. After going through “that” time, I thought, “I can do anything as long as I’m alive.” Now I’m much more cheerful than “that” time. I try to make positive thoughts out of bad circumstances because hardship does not last forever, I can endure it.

“I’m thinking about conducting activities in other countries as well.”

So instead of quickly succeeding, it seems like you value trying to pursue things with the people close to you, although it might take longer.
It’s not fun to live thinking only of yourself. And if you succeed later, it’s not fun if you don’t have someone to enjoy it with. What’s the purpose of enjoying things alone? What are you going to do when that all disappears later? (laughs)

What is considered “success” to you?
Success has different meanings to different people. But I think I’ve already succeeded because my dream from the beginning was to be able to look out for my family and be on stage with AOM. It was an impossible dream a few years ago. It was nonsense to think of doing concerts with AOM and stuff like that, but it came true. Therefore I’m already a success.

Seeing how they grant you independence in doing music and forming your team, the way your contract with your current agency is set up must be very different from that of a Korean idol group’s.
It is very different. Before I signed with them, we made some mutual agreements, this was possible because we had trust in each other. Although they tried to follow what I’m trying to do as for as music goes, they had some doubts. But after I released several songs like “Bestie” and “Speechless” one by one and received a great response to the album, it seems like they’ve started to believe in me. If I can show them and get acknowledged, I’m sure we can build more trust in each other and move forward.

You said tattoos are “just like rapping and dancing” before, but they could place restrictions on your broadcast activities. Isn’t it possible that the laidback way you want to go about your activities may not be the way to lead successful broadcast activities in Korea?
First off, I won’t get any more tattoos on my arms. (laughs) I think the way that I want to succeed doesn’t need to conflict with others. I’m not trying to bother others, I’m just doing music that I want because I like it. And besides Korea, I’m thinking about conducting activities in America and other countries as well.

Koreans tend to draw the line between them and you when your nationality and origin are not Korean.
Yes, although both of my parents are Koreans, I can’t do anything about me being born in America. I’m just proud that I bleed Korean blood, and I tend to keep on eye on those rappers and musicians in America who are Koreans. That was the reason why I started to take an interest in Choo Sung-hoon. And frankly, we are all people. No matter if you’re Korean or American.

Do you still need to put a lot of effort into getting used to Korean society?
Not recently. Because I’ve been living here for a long time. It’s been 6 years. I think I’ve already adapted myself thoroughly. I didn’t drink at all back then, but now that I’m able to drink to socialize, I’m totally adjusted. (laughs)

Do you feel any “cultural differences” when you’re going back and forth between foreign countries and Korea?
Wherever I go, it’s always a little different. And now I can adjust very quickly. It was tough for me to get used to Korea when I first got here from America, but after living here and there, going to many places, eating many kinds of foods, doing concerts, and meeting with various fans, I don’t get surprised by so many things now. I would think, “Ah, this is how things work here.” In a sense, Korea and America are connected as one world. If the earth happens to be destroyed, then everyone goes together. (laughs)