Epik High in San Francisco. Photo: Courtesy of OURS CO
Born in South Korea as the youngest of three children, Tablo and his family moved to Canada when he was in second grade. His parents, he said, did it to secure better education for his older siblings. “My brother had to literally memorize the entire English dictionary. My dad forced him to, because he had maybe two years to apply to a college, and they wanted him to go to an Ivy League school, which is ridiculous considering he just left Korea,” Tablo said. He was put under the same pressure. His parents wanted him to go to one of three schools—Harvard, Stanford, or MIT—and then land one of a handful of jobs—doctor, lawyer, professor, “or, like, a Nobel Prize winner.”“Nothing I say would be accepted as truth.”
Epik High. Photo: Courtesy of OURS CO
“Get out of it. Turn yourself in, bastard. Your brother and sister were also screwed. You guys who couldn’t integrate into the Canadian community and were kicked out of middle school, came back to South Korea and lied that you graduated from American universities? How dare you? People who really studied at those privileged schools don’t live like you. You, low life, use your brain before lying.”
An Epik High concert. Photo: Courtesy of OURS CO
“It had gotten to a point where I now had no choice but to fight.”
Photos of Epik High in a restaurant in Seoul’s Hongdae neighborhood, which the group frequented after shows. Photo: Min Ji Koo
