Let's talk about my favorite person, often referred to as the "sex god" by TKPA, which I strongly agree -- but I'm actually thinking really hard on what to call him myself...Suggestions anyone? Anyway, First of all, I wanna greet you peepz happy New Year! Say your final goodbyes to 2010 and freely welcome 2011!
Okay! What am I saying again? Oh yeah! My baby T.O.P, as gorgeous as ever, talked about how he feels about his music, his stage characters, and how he relates himself to his songs.
It was an interview posted in 'allkpop' which I copied... I just picked some from the interview questions since it's too long...
> I think your image on stage has changed since last time. At the “YG Family Concert’, the way you suddenly approached your fans very closely at the standing section, and also your rapping… it’s a different feeling.
T.O.P: It was never anything I calculated beforehand. When I’m on stage with Jiyong, we have a basic outline on what to do, but we also always perform ad-libs. I think it’s a sort of strength that we got after promoting together through the years. It’s the same with acting, but when you’re on stage, the sentiments you show on stage are never calculated, but it’s the feel of the music that we’re trying to convey. In the end, I think it’s that kind of strength where we get our confidence from.
T.O.P: Rather than a special reason, I’ve actually been questioning myself a lot over the past year. Before, I used to think, “Why am I doing this?” There were also a lot of aspects about my work that gave me a hard time, and I began to think about whether I was carrying a load that was too heavy for me. But as I grew older, the question changed into, “What does the general public want from me?”
> Before, it felt like you were digging deeper into your inner self, but now you’re thinking of ways to influence other people. How were you able to shift your mindset?
T.O.P: I think I began to expand my thoughts about the world. The world is so chaotic, but there are still people who live difficult lives without the ability to obtain strength. But those very people are either people who look over me and Big Bang, or people who listen to our music. I wanted those people to feel vicarious satisfaction when listening to anyone’s music. That’s why I began to think of different methods to allow people to feel that satisfaction.
[Those bitches got their hands on my T.O.P's sweaty but so hmmmmmm face that I'm so jealous I wanna cut those hands with my own!]
T.O.P: To be honest, when I was in my younger mindset, I didn’t really like people’s interest and love, as they felt burdensome. I never derived joy from it. As I threw away that greed, other things came more natural to me – musical greed. But thoughts of having to do something with my music also disappeared.
In the past, when we released a new song, I think I said, “We hope for a lot of your interest” a lot, but now it’s okay if people don’t show interest. Instead, I want to become a person that amplifies a person’s interest. That’s why I wanted to return the amount I received, and that’s why I forced myself a lot to study more about music. I have so much more to show everyone.
> Is this in any way related to your own life situation? You were active as an actor for some time, and then released all your music at once through this album.
T.O.P: When I returned from acting in ‘Into the Gunfire‘, I saw that GD was already producing music, and I too started working on Big Bang’s album the moment I came back. During that time, the flow of the music had changed drastically. Many brilliant artists were promoting at the time as well, but I was absent from that flow while I was away. I had to take a step back to reorganize my thoughts.
T.O.P: Yes. Compared to others our age, we get to stand in front of a huge amount of people. We may receive a lot of praise and criticisms, but after experiencing that process repeatedly, I got tired of it. That’s why I wanted to maintain a certain distance from people, and wanted to become a person you could only see on stage or hear through music. However, since the #1 priority is to satisfy the listeners, this album became a project over which we stressed about a lot on how to merge these two aspects together.
T.O.P: I think about it all the time. But I think I’ve almost reached the answer to those problems. Musically, for example, instead of thinking, “What does the general public like and what kind of trend will we go for?”, it’s better to do what I want to do, and go for something that’s never been tried before but not going too far, because if I make the wrong choice, there are still some good people out there who would catch me right away. If I believe in those people, I will always be able to go towards a new direction with a type of boldness that’s not too bold.
> I think that’s why your lyrics in this album have character. Rappers feel like fake characters, but at the same time, you can express what you want to say in your most confident manner.
T.O.P: When we decided to promote together, the first thing we talked about was writing lyrics that only we have the capability to write. After all, at our young age, a vast amount of people anticipate us, as well as dole out criticisms. We wanted to write lyrics about us in that sort of situation. There are people who may call this a bluff. However, we really wanted to write lyrics that were hard to refute against. Kind of like, “This is what we are, you think you can refute?”
[Awesome duo performance!]
T.O.P: That’s right. We wanted to show the foundations of GD and myself through the sampling of old school hip hop music. Through this, we wanted to ask what kind of rap was more sincere. Because I talked about my stories and current life through my own methods.
> Was ‘Oh Mom’ the opposite of that method? The song was different from your other songs with GD, in that it wasn’t about the person people saw you as, but actually about your own personal life.
T.O.P: ‘Oh Mom’ is based on a true story. I can’t tell the story in detail, but you can consider it as a gift that I wanted to give to a friend who was gravely ill. It is an incredibly meaningful song to me – to be honest, it wasn’t actually a song that was in the tracklist, but I really wanted to add it in, so we ended up putting it in.
> I think that aspect of music matches well with your personal goals and your thoughts for the general public.
T.O.P: Our songs were derived more from our instincts rather than complicated thoughts, but we’re people who have reached great success as Big Bang from such a young age. To be honest, we’re kids who are sensitive in their desire to do music. In that time, we’ve felt a lot, and we wanted to express those sentiments, but we also wanted to discover our purposes. When we take a step back to reflect on ourselves, we get to see the bigger picture and our purposes become clearer, little by little. That’s why we want to give confidence to the general public, and I want to become an life ‘vitamin’ for both me and the people around me.
> Your confidence sure is a “knockout” (Laughs). There might be people sharpening their blades every time you go on stage to attack – what do you think it’s going to be like?
T.O.P: Our blades are sharper. (Laughs)
Click this link to read complete interview details
