The Promoter
Thursday October 4, 2012 by Offwhyte
Sang Yi. Korean American. Chicagoan. Hip hop promoter. The man is all of those things, but he is most definitely the last one. The term "promoter" may not strike quite a serious tone, at least to some. But a man that can list among his accomplishments the assembly of all living members of the Wu Tang Clan, Company Flow's only non-Coachella performance of last year (and only show in Chicago ever), and the deliverance of the 100% bonified real MF Doom, is definitely serious with his.
He tries to play it off. We're in my kitchen and I'm telling him it's hard to be able to set up and deliver something of quality on a regular basis, especially in a business as riddled with complexities as live performance. During this particular week, Sang is in LA for a wedding. He speaks of his past events in a very matter-of-fact tone.
"For Company Flow, I thought well, how about we get them to stop in Chicago before they head out to California? That's how the idea came about. Only three specific businesses were able to get them to do a reunion show - ATP, which is based out of London, Coachella, and me. So that's definitely one of the things I'm proud of."
I first met Sang outside of Gramaphone Records, at its original location just South of where it is now on Clark Street. It was the early part of the 2000's and Pugslee introduced us, unsurprisingly. I had already heard of Sang through his promotion company Hip Hop 2000. He was throwing a lot of shows around the city and I would see the name "Hip Hop 2000" on flyers everywhere. His promotion company is now billed as Sang Presents. I ask him how he was first exposed to Chicago hip hop.
"Just going out to some of the loft parties, and some of the events at the venue on Fullerton & Milwaukee - The Royal. That's where I first started finding out about the underground. I was in high school in 1994,1995, when E.C. was making a name for himself. You know, being a North Side kid, you'd see all his shit all around the city. You'd see stop signs with these red bumper stickers - the top of it said "you can't", then the STOP sign, then 'E. C. Illa' underneath - 'You can't STOP E.C. Illa'. That was pretty cool."
I agree, that the city in general was more bombed back then.
"Yeah. People really made an effort to put their name out there, versus now when people just kind of sit on computers, and let technology work for them.."
This leads me to ask him about how technology has affected his marketing.
"On some levels, technology has made some things easier, but the same time, it has made things easier to ignore. Look at TV commercials. When TV commercials first came around, you had a captive audience. You had their full attention. But you don't anymore. Back in the late 90's, when we were passing out flyers, people paid attention to them. But after a while, after just getting bombarded with it, they just sort of ignored it. And with technology, a couple years back, it made some things easier because people were excited about the ease of sending out information, and receiving it. But after a while, they get so much of it. Now they just ignore that too. Today it seems it's best to do a combination of both, just because if you really want the shit to work, you need to do every single thing you can."
Lately Sang has been promoting his shows both over social networking and through hand-to-hand, "street level" promotion. It's quite a bit of work. So what makes it all worth it? Sang goes on to explain his appreciation of the more human moments.
"I have to say - and I imagine most other promoters would say the same thing - it's not the shows. The most memorable experiences are the times outside of the shows. Just.. having interesting conversations with Pete Rock in the car, or interesting conversations with Slick Rick or Rakim."
"Slick Rick was in the car with me, and I was playing some funk-soul, just some Northern soul, and he was in the car like, 'Oooh, this shit's kind of cool!' But I'm thinking, 'you should know this music, this is from your age!' (Laughs). So experiences like that are pretty cool to me."
"Just a couple days ago, my second night being in LA. I was at some Hollywood wrap-up party for some movie, this new movie that Rashida Jones and Andy Samberg are in, they were there taking photos and their PR people were there. Well, towards the end of the party, I'm standing in the corner of the room, and I see that Quincy fuckin' Jones is there. I'm like holy shit, you know? But then you see Rashida Jones talking with Quincy - he's her Dad - but they're having a private moment there, you know? Just an honest private moment, no cameras, no nothing. I think that's pretty dope, just people acting normal, acting pretty real."
When I ask him about which of his events were the most memorable, he recalls a few, but goes into detail about a concert at The Metro with Rude One of Single Minded Pros, KRS-One, Kool G Rap, Eratic Static and others.
"The show sold out, the overall vibe of the night was great. One of the things I thought was pretty dope was that Tony Touch happened to be in town that same day, doing some Reggaeton shit. I guess toward the end of the show, Score and Shabazz were running around with Tony Touch and they brought him up to the Metro. And, they almost didn't get let in because the show sold out. But I happened to be walking past the door and I caught them. So of course I get them in, and they run up on stage, and.. just to see the responses - I mean the honest responses of KRS, G Rap, and Tony Touch, I mean it's just like.. to be able to see that, that's an honest reaction. That shit's dope, you know? You can't really pay for that."
