Woo Jiho (Department of Performing Arts, Class of 2012)
“I want to become a singer like singer”
Idol singer, BLOCK B’s Zico has been admitted to our university in the Department of Performing Arts and Drama. Drama and Music! Let us look at the story of his new challenge.
Despite having a busy schedule, we saw a bright smile on our classmate, Woo Jiho’s face. At the age of 20, he has the aura of characteristic passion. Buried underneath his mischievous tone is the seriousness for music & acting. We asked him about his activities as a singer and his new studies for acting.
Classmate Woo Jiho considered studying art rather than singing or acting. He, who liked to draw from early childhood, said that he wanted to study professional art. But once he began writing rap lyrics at the age of 18, he completely fell into the charms of rhythm and rhyme. That was how the dream of becoming a singer was raised, he shared.
He has the skills to be able to produce an album for BLOCK B now, but it wasn’t like that from the beginning. At the age of 18, he experienced underground music for the first time. Because usually rough language is straightforwardly used to express thoughts in underground music, he was able to be relatively free. But the popular music he encountered after debut was much different from the music of the past. Writing lyrics especially became a problem. In order to gain recognition through popular music, they had to write lyrics through which the population could relate to. Truthfully, some people look down on popular music, saying that it is made as if it has been processed through a factory, but he said that compared to any other genres, music for the masses was the most difficult to produce. Especially, trying to draw empathy from the masses was the most difficult for him. He reasoned that his young age is the cause for his inexperience. In order to overcome this handicap, he shared that he listened carefully to other’s stories. He said, “When I want to share stories of other people that I can empathise with, lyrics are a good way to do so, which is why I listen to others stories a lot.”
He who loves music very much as a singer, why is he here to study acting? We listened to his story. He said that it is because he is a singer that he came to learn how to act. He said that he didn’t want to face the same things in university that he plentifully does as a singer. Classmate Woo Jiho said that it’s because he loves standing on stage so much, that he dreams of being able to stand on stage through acting as well as music. He, who is passionate about music, also has a strong passion in challenging new things, and he is anticipating his studies in drama.
When asked about the hardships of their activities, he recalls the times of when they were trainees. He revealed that he was so yearning to debut so he only focused on practising. As the debut day got postponed further, he devoted himself into practice trying to forget about the burden and anxiety that followed with it. He said that when he thinks back to that time, once again, he reflects on how happy he is at this moment. He is really grateful for those times and it brings him happiness. With a mischievous expression, he says that the thing he would like to do most once he becomes a university student is to lie down on the sports field, and sprawl out with his friends as they watch the sky. He said that he would like to do trivial things like eating food with his close friends. As he said that he wants to joke around and exercise with his classmates, we felt his sincerity.
He says that he is no different from his classmates in his desire to work hard and learn about acting which he has to study from now on as his major. He thinks that it’s always exciting to challenge a new field so this new challenge of acting makes his heart race.
When we asked him “What type of singer do you want to be remembered as?” he answered “I want to be a singer like singer”. A singer like singer, who is good at singing and making good music. He confidently said that the performance and the producing must be good but first, the singer has to be good at singing. We asked him if he thinks he has reached his goal yet, but he clearly answered that he is constantly striving towards it.
We hope that classmate Woo Jiho’s seriousness and mischievousness will remain intact in their album. Performing Arts major Woo Jiho, we hope that your passion shines the light even as singer Zico.
Source: 동아방송예술대학교 프레스
Image CR: @/BabyDoL_H
Translated By: Simpletonjun@ BLOCKBINTL
Edited By: Youngha@ BLOCKBINTL