Chapter 20
Actually, at some point, I had started trying to avoid using popular songs from my past life whenever possible—that is, songs I hadn't written myself.
In the end, it was a matter of pride as a composer: to have a long career in this industry, I had to prove myself through my own ability, not talent borrowed from others.
Until now, my memories of songs from my past life and my singing ability had luckily created enough synergy to make me a favorite to win, but I couldn't go on wearing other people's glory as if it were my own forever.
But this time, the situation was different.
‘...Hip-hop really isn’t it.’
No matter how deeply I dug through my memories of my past life, I couldn't find a single instance of having composed or produced hip-hop myself and achieved any meaningful results with it.
I could manage short bits of rap-making for idol songs or laying melodies over trendy beats.
But building a song rooted in hip-hop from the ground up was an entirely different matter.
It wasn't something that could be solved simply by being good at music; it required a perfect understanding of the genre's unique style and texture.
“Haa, do I really have to do this again after all?”
I sat in front of the mirror in the empty practice room tucked away in a corner of the orphanage and rubbed my face.
Even if it hurt my pride a little, creating a convincing hip-hop song within a week in a nine-year-old body was physically close to impossible.
On top of that, there was another fundamental problem. I couldn't rap.
Even if I brought over a song from my past life, it was obvious that choosing a traditional hip-hop song would leave me unable to perform it with my current ability.
‘I’ll have to go with singing rap after all.’
Although it was a genre that had sparked countless debates in the hip-hop scene, numerous examples had already proven that singing rap definitely worked with the public.
Quite a few singing-rap hits flashed through my mind.
In fact, there were countless songs I could have copied. Limiting the scope to the Korean market, it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that more hits had come from singing rap than from traditional rap.
But even among singing-rap songs, the difficulty varied enormously. Most of them seemed easy when you listened to them normally, but once you tried singing them at karaoke, your pronunciation would get tangled up.
Especially given the physical limitations of a young child whose teeth had not fully developed, performing high-difficulty rap perfectly was close to impossible.
‘Is this rigged?’
Why did I have to draw something like this of all things? But since it was the result of a wooden stick I had chosen with my own hands, there wasn't much I could do besides huffing angrily by myself.
“Given my current condition, what I can handle... that’s probably the best choice.”
After a long deliberation, I selected a song whose difficulty was at least manageable with my physical condition.
* * *
A song that had once climbed near the top of the charts.
Despite being a good enough song, it had been relatively buried because the title track on the same rapper's album, released around the same time, was simply too good.
Its distinctive lyrical melody line and casually tossed-off rap seemed like they would suit my nine-year-old, clear voice quite well.
I holed myself up in the studio and immediately began laying down the beat.
Actually, making the beat itself was easy.
Since the entire song was already in my head, it was simply a matter of copying it.
The topline to be written over the beat was completed just as quickly.
Including the fine-tuning after it was finished, I built the song's framework in just two days.
All that remained was the lyrics... and there was a bit of a problem with using the original lyrics.
For one thing, they were about love, with plenty of talk about cigarettes and women, and they even contained profanity.
So they weren't exactly appropriate for me, a nine-year-old, to sing.
That meant I had to write the lyrics myself...
“I’ve never made anything like that before.”
I had written plenty of lyrics for regular songs. But writing lyrics for a hip-hop song... I honestly had no idea how to go about it.
I couldn't even figure out what the subject should be.
I first played the song for the filming crew members holding the cameras.
“What do you think?”
“...Ahh. It’s really good.”
“Hmm.”
As expected, I couldn't get any particularly concrete feedback.
So I headed next to Park Han-su, who was holed up downstairs fiddling with instruments.
Park Han-su played the beat I'd made loudly through the speakers, then rested his chin on his hand and listened for a long while.
“This beat... it’s really peculiar. It’s hip-hop, but it has a heart-aching feeling to it.”
“It feels like autumn night air. Not too heavy, but with some breathing room.”
A gentle guitar riff lay underneath, with a polished 808 bass layered over it.
The result was infused with the distinctive emotional hip-hop formula that had once swept the upper reaches of the charts in my past life.
My current shell is too young for a love song. But forcing myself to criticize society would feel too contrived.
“Writing lyrics? That’s not my thing. I’m just a vocalist. Could you introduce me to someone who writes lyrics for our songs?”
“No, it’s not like it needs to go that far...”
Seeing me wave my hands awkwardly in refusal, Park Han-su tossed out a weighty remark.
“If I were you, I’d write about my own story.”
“But I used that last time.”
“That wasn’t your story, was it? Besides, where would a bastard abandoned at birth get a family photo?”
At that moment, I felt a chill run through my entire body as I turned to look at Park Han-su.
Right. The family photo wasn't Seo Si-yeon's story. It was a story from my past life.
Yet it was nearly impossible for anyone to realize that.
After all, if an orphan wrote lyrics about missing their mother, who would decide that it wasn't their own story?
I had even cried after the stage ended.
‘Wait, but isn’t that a little harsh?’
I honestly couldn't tell whether this man's character was good or bad.
Maybe he had only said it because he knew I wouldn't be particularly hurt by words like that, but saying something like that to an elementary-school-aged orphan was a bit much...
“Your silence tells me I’m right. As I understand it, in Korea, hip-hop usually means writing your own story in the lyrics.”
“...I suppose that tendency is especially strong on an audition show.”
What had been my reason for deciding to appear on Singerstar in the first place?
First, it was to escape the orphanage and this shitty neighborhood. After that, I wanted to make a lot of money and do whatever I wanted.
That goal itself hadn't changed much.
To me, Neulneul Orphanage was always a strange place, somewhere I would have to leave someday.
In other words, the orphanage had never once felt like home to me.
But the Seo Si-yeon from before I possessed her body had been a little different.
For a girl who was an outcast among her peers and had no friends at school, the younger children at the orphanage had been her only refuge.
Besides, after possessing her, it was only natural that even I would develop at least some affection for the people living here.
After all, everyone at the orphanage had been supporting my audition with all their heart, and quite a few people had given me tangible help.
There were the children who lent me clothes and the older kids who made sure I had snacks.
And people like Seo Ina, who had given me genuinely tremendous help.
Above all, after living together here, it was only natural that I felt a sense of kinship in the fact that we were all orphans.
“I suppose it really was time to start thinking about it seriously.”
I left Park Han-su's studio, returned to the orphanage, and continued thinking about it.
I had written both the lyrics and the music for Glassy Sky, which had cemented itself near the top of the charts.
Since I had no one to share the credits with, almost all the revenue from the song would come to me.
The organizers had said they would settle everything at once after the audition ended, so in a few months, a considerable sum of money would probably find its way into my hands.
I had already earned more than enough money to leave the orphanage.
Even taking my memories of my past life into account, the amount about to appear in my bank account was absurd for a nine-year-old child to possess.
But once my escape actually came into sight, a heavy feeling settled in one corner of my heart, as though something had given me indigestion.
‘Maybe it’s because I’ve been cooped up in my room.’
I grabbed my laptop and headed for the orphanage's living room.
The place was crowded with the elementary-school-aged children occupying the space in front of the TV and the older kids doing homework at tables they had set up. The moment I appeared, the children swarmed me.
“Si-yeon unni!”
“What song are you doing this time, noona?”
The children who called me unni and followed me around were, naturally, little ones who had only just started elementary school or hadn't even come close to attending school yet.
The ones blatantly bringing up money right next to me, on the other hand, were around middle-school age.
“Si-yeon, go out there and give the orphanage a proper shout-out.”
“For real. I hope we can really milk some donations out of this opportunity.”
“Haha... I’ll do my best.”
Most of them were either destined to become neighborhood punks when they grew up or had already completed the transition.
But after rubbing shoulders with them here, I came to understand that this wasn't so much a matter of personality as an unavoidable survival method created by their environment.
That didn't mean those punk bastards were nice, though.
“There’s something I’m curious about. Can you all answer me?”
As I listened to them harp on about money, a good idea suddenly occurred to me. What if I incorporated our orphanage's story into this song?
‘Actually, I want to save my own story for the finals or much later.’
That way, wouldn't the story's progression come together perfectly?
Besides, the idea I'd just come up with was more than sufficient to make a favorable impression on people.
The modest wishes of the orphans at our orphanage.
If I put them into the lyrics, wouldn’t it bring the song to life?”