Big Bang - Shout Out To The World! (English Translation) [2009]

Big Bang - Shout Out To The World! TOP

Big Bang – Shout Out To The World!

(English Translation)

[2009]

Shout out to the World: TOP

“I came here because of that string of hope. Where do I stand now? I ask myself this but even I don’t have a specific answer yet. During the process where I search for my other self, all my worries will fade away because I must find the person who will lend his shoulders to me.” ~TOP

Name: Choi Seung-hyun Date of Birth: November 4, 1987 Skills: Rap, Writing lyrics, Beatbox *Starred in the KBS Drama, ‘I am Sam’

The power to awaken a soul, sometimes it takes pain to be re-born. [~ Pt.One~]

-I once wanted to be a lyric poet that composed and recited verses.-

I became mesmerized with ‘Hip-Hop’ music when I was in Grade 5. I went crazy for this type of music because I listened to it all day and carefully noted all the rap lyrics. If we have to talk about Hip-Hop music, I have to briefly talk about the roots of American Hip-Hop.

When I first started listening to Hip-Hop, it was divided up into East Coast and West Coast in America. Wu Tang Clan and Notorius B.I.G. represented the East Coast (New York) scene and they focused largely on the rap and the lyrics, while representing the West Coast (LA) was 2Pac who focused more on the melody. Although at that time in Korea and from my memory, more people listened to West Coast hip hop but I was more into the East Coast style. When I listened to their raps, I would always exclaim to myself, “Ah this kind of music should be attempted by a man at least once in his life”. I wanted to be like them; where I could express my own philosophy and messages for people.

Their rap lyrics usually talk about the life of these young boys. If I have to briefly describe the feeling, it would be: “my family is poor, I live in a world of crime but now I’m successful, if my parents are thirsty they no longer have to drink water but they can drink champagne”. Sometimes the lyrics were violent

and very dark but this type of greed would happen at least once in a man’s lifetime. This kind of feeling started to eventually grow in me.

After entering high school, I seemed to be in the spotlight a lot…perhaps because I was taller than children the same age and I was wearing a lot of hip hop style clothes. I was into fashion when I was young so I used to wear hip hop brands that my friends didn’t wear. I would save up my money to buy the clothes I wanted even if my parents didn’t give me allowance.

I had absolutely no interest in school and started to hang around “the problem teens”, as the adults would say. They are my most precious friends now but in our society, people would refer to them as bad influences. When I was growing up, I saw a lot of things I shouldn’t have seen and experienced a lot that I shouldn’t have.

It was also during this time where emotions were running high and a lot of things weren’t going as planned. It was the first time that I experienced what the feeling of “being hurt” and “scared” was. Even though I was doing things the adults didn’t want me to do, my friends doing meaningless things were also a problem. Compared to those who were trying to positively affect these children again, I hated the adults who punished without reason. Rather than teaching children what was right, they used punishment to make these children fall deeper into the hole..and because of this constant hurt and outburts, they turned for the worse.

The adults labeled these children who had just entered high school as “problem teens”, while the parents cried because they “raised a juvenile delinquent”. Even for those who, in the beginning weren’t doing much harm, but after being kicked out of school, transferred to a new one and having the label as a “problem child” made them fall deeper into their delinquent activities.

I slowly started to fall into a dark hole myself after watching my friends change around me.