The Soul Dojo

Pretending like I don’t know the camera be on me.

Time to make things in the Dojo a bit more interesting and post about stuff that’s OUTSIDE of just making music, showcasing the music that was made, and showing you guys how we made the music that we decided to showcase after we made it. Confusing? Yeah, me too. That’s precisely why I’m posting about some other shit and instead I’m gonna talk about what it’s like crate digging in South Korea.

Yes, I had to put SOUTH Korea on there because when I say I’m in Korea, some people still think that it’s 1953 and believe that I took a direct flight from LAX to Pyongyang to take a vacation in a place where eating food is illegal. Nah, ain’t for me. But with Kim Jong Il gone, who knows what’s gonna happen to that place? Btw, here’s a hilarious Tumblr that I came across in regards to the “Dear Leader”: kimjongillookingatthings.tumblr.com.

Upon my arrival to S. Korea, I chilled with my family and decided to go dig for some Korean records with my dad and brother the following day. With the help of a friend, I found out about an awesome flea market in the heart of Seoul where they sell a bunch of random shit in the streets, so I decided to go there first. The moment I got there, I saw a dude selling a bunch of records outside in the blistering cold, so I wanted to stop by and check it out. Here are some pictures of me and my brother looking through some records pretending like we were about to own them in a few minutes (afterwards we immediately bounced; the selection was terrible, but at least we got the pictures). And yes, I’m wearing Beats headphones in these snapshots, so fuck you.

I be like, “Heeeeey!”

My brother supports UNICEF.

After about 2 or 3 more spots of these dudes selling records in the streets, I quickly realized that they were all selling the same stuff and most of the copies there were actually BOOTLEGGED copies. I didn’t really know that people owned bootlegged vinyls of Diana Ross, Willie Hutch, and all these other cats, but these owners made it so obvious that it was ridiculous. I mean, don’t put a record there that proclaims it’s a Marvin Gaye album but has a white dude on the cover; shit don’t make sense, bro bro.

At that point, my dad started asking around to see if there were actual record shops around, and luckily, there were! Now, once we visited the first shop, I learned a little about the culture of record digging in Korean vinyl stores. At first glance, this shop was a digger’s haven. There were records all OVER the place, from the ceiling to the floor covering every single square inch of this shop. The owner was chillin’ inside while sitting on a bin full of records that seemed to have appeared strictly out of his anus. I was thrilled. However, as I started looking around, there were no Korean records from the 1950s to the 1970s, which was the period that I was heavily interested in. When I asked the owner’s wife where these records were, she asked me how much I was willing to pay because those records were expensive. I told her that I’d be willing to pay $30 to $40 a record (which was obviously bullshit, I just wanted her to bust them out real quick), but she shook her head and told me that it wasn’t worth the trouble of her going into the crates to dig them out. 30 to 40 bucks?! 30,000 to 40,000 KOREAN WON per RECORD, and you don’t even wanna go through ONE crate for me?!

Dude in the back stingy like a muhfucka.

Then it hit me. I went to a record store prior to this one last year, and even they were stingy on busting out the records that I wanted to look at. The records I wanted to check out specifically were from the Korean psychedelic rock period, which has some RIDICULOUS jams. I soon found out that these records go from $500 to $800, depending on which artist you wanted to grab. I did a quick analysis of my priorities and realized that having a place to sleep was more important than owning a record by a Korean bass guitarist, so I left to search for somewhere more practical.

At this point I was a little disappointed with what I was finding, BUT… as luck would have it, just 3 stores down from this place, I found the place that was waiting for me all this time. The spot that I was always looking for here in Korea. The moment I walked inside, I saw a huge mural on the wall full of what you WANT to see when you walk into a record store….. graffiti. Fuckin’ DOPE graffiti. I knew that this place was a haven for hip hop producers such as myself, so I waltzed in and took a look.

The bro enjoying the essence of hip hop.

There was a lady at the front desk sippin’ on coffee while blasting some beautiful jazz music, just chillin’ as she was putting colored stickers on every record that was in front of her. I smiled, bowed to her gracefully, and told her that I was looking for some Korean records from the 50s – 70s. As I prepared myself for rejection and slappage of my face with a stalk of kimchi, she surprised me and guided me towards the back where a BEAUTIFUL array of records, all alphabetically arranged and tagged with colored stickers, awaited my arrival. At first I thought this was too good to be true, so I slowwwly stretched my fingers out and suspiciously flipped through all the joints. I found everything I wanted. All the artists I were looking for, from every time period I could possibly imagine spanning the course of Korean music. The other thing was that everything had a colored sticker on it, which clearly indicated the price of the record.

Straight business.

One thing about these Korean record shops is that they DO NOT HAVE DOLLAR BINS. If you’re looking to walk out of an awesome record shop with 10 records and your wallet only feeling 10 bucks lighter, try North Korea instead. In most of the shops I went to, there were no prices explicitly listed on the records. Consequently, the moment the owners knew you were interested in a record, the price would rise to meet this “sudden increase in demand” for the vinyl. Therefore, it was beautiful to know what every single record costed as I was looking through them, instead of being told later on that I would have to work as a slave for the next 6 months at the shop to bring home the records that I so eagerly wanted to own.

Koreans love posing for any picture.

I spent about 2-3 hours digging at the shop and took home a bunch of records. I also went there again a few weeks later and had yet another enjoyable experience. After talking to the owners for a bit, I realized that this was a straight up business for them; they would take monthly trips to Japan to stock up jazz and soul records because that country treats these records like family JEWELS. I learned a lot about Korean musical history during my two trips to this shop, and felt a renewed sense of purpose in the creation of my own music as well.

“Look Mama Blues, dusty fingers!”

There is something beautiful about going to a foreign land and going crate digging there. You learn so much about the music that helped to shape that nation to this day, and how the culture developed as a direct consequence of the music at that time. All in all, it was a very dope experience, and I hope y’all are able to do the same in any other country you visit……. maybe except for North Korea.