RAP STAR

Chapter 136 [verse 27. 888 Crew version 2, END]

The gaze of the gallery owners was suddenly focused on Sang-hyun, and Korean journalists started taking pictures like crazy. The journalists understood Sang-hyun's media power well, so the atmosphere for reporting heated up quickly.

This enthusiastic response from the journalists spread even to the foreign gallery owners who didn't know Sang-hyun well. Observing the journalists' reactions, it seemed like the current musician felt more famous than the previous performers.

Finally, Sang-hyun's rap began.

Surprisingly, the start of the rap was calm. Amidst the beats erupting here and there, it simply floated slowly.

It was like looking at the sea before a typhoon; unlike the fierce waves on the surface, the seaweed swayed gently underwater. Sang-hyun's rap was just like that.

The first four lines, almost like an intro, conveyed that most of Sang-hyun's existence was born from impulses: birth from parental love, survival from instincts and desires, living life, and eventually diving into music. It strongly argued that everything, from the inevitability of birth and growth to the moment of choice in life and music, was a result of impulses.

And that argument grew stronger and stronger.

Sang-hyun's voice grew louder, firmer, and more powerful.

"No matter what anyone says, I'm complete as myself. Born at the limit, stepping out beyond the limit. Something keeps roaring inside me, the choices I made every day just to hold onto it."

As the main verses began, the mood among the audience changed. Sang-hyun's vibe through rap was much closer to poetry than to rap itself. "Living by the Riverside" by Ha-yeon and Min-ji was a song closer to poetry than rap. While the rhythm of the rap was alive, it lacked the rawness of rap skills or hip-hop.

Jun-hyeong and Hwan's "Mirror" stood in the middle ground between rap and poetry. It evoked ambiguous and concise poetic imagery while maintaining the taste of rap with its rhymes, flow, and groove.

Finally, Sang-hyun's "Noble Impulse" was a song very close to the format of rap.

"Isn't this just a rap song?" But there were quite a few who felt resistance to Sang-hyun's songs. And there were many who openly expressed it.

"It's mind-blowing."

For them, rap songs without the specialness of "poetry and rap" were nothing more than a subgenre of unpopular mainstream culture.

Sang-hyun didn't mind their resistance. Expressing preferences in art was an individual's choice and right. But regardless of that, he was clear about the position an artist should take: showing more passion for their own work, refining it more splendidly, and seducing people.

"Calling that moment an impulse and feeling nobility. Gathering impulses to tie them into dreams. The vitality that makes my eyes flash every morning is simultaneously the threshold of success."

"Ah...!"

Listening to the rap, Oh Yeon-joo unintentionally recalled the moment she first met Sang-hyun. It wasn't about the voice but the feeling conveyed. The feeling of emotions in meaning coming through unfiltered, penetrating her whole body. The reason people feel art is difficult and distant is that the emotions and intentions of the artist are not properly conveyed. There are hardly any people who feel 100 emotions directly through art made with 100 emotions. While the preservation rate of emotions in popular art might be higher than in other forms of art, it's still not perfect. But Sang-hyun didn't have those shortcomings. In fact, Oh Yeon-joo had felt a sense of regret when she encountered Sang-hyun through hip-hop vibes, feeling that something was missing. He was producing excellent and wonderful music, but she couldn't forget the shock she felt when they first met. But that hadn't disappeared. It was just due to the limitations of mass media communication methods like TV. The emotions praising and praising impulses in Sang-hyun were bubbling up inside the bodies of the gallery owners like impulses.