On the 4th, a press release announced on Grandline Entertainment's Facebook celebrated Crybaby, a former member of Independent Records, joining Grandline Entertainment as their newest recruitment. In the press release, it was written, "However, it was announced that Vasco decided to disband the label but in still wanting to take care of Crybaby, he decided to recommend him to Grandline Entertainment."
Hold up, what announcement? Even if I'm 10 years behind on Korean hip hop, I think this would have been news that everyone, even myself would have at least heard of. I tried looking through his Twitter but nothing except his photos of cigarettes and some bird's nest forming in his neighborhood. So with a little more searching, I found this "announcement."
It was in his interview with Hiphopplaya released 2.5 weeks ago for his album release where they completely cut to the chase and asked about his disbandment, the question being, "Let's talk about the album later. First off, what a lot of people are curious about is, has Independent Records disbanded despite there being no official statement released?"
To the question, Vasco responded, "It is disbandment. After having gone through with my divorce, I was mentally exhausted and I couldn't take care of the kids. Before the time of the divorce, I was living a lifestyle for a dual-income family so I had to adjust myself. When I got divorced, I had to handle all of the pressures remaining from that lifestyle and I lost my leisure in life. I couldn't invest for the kids and I felt like I was holding them back. We're always the ones who curse out others who do this exact thing, saying things like, 'How could he not do anything with them when he was the one who recruited them in the first place? That's such an irresponsible company.' However, some of the kids who still stayed expressed wanting to leave also. I guess you can relate this situation to San-E's case, where he liked the people there but it was hard to work in that environment, resulting in his leave. I didn't want to become that same CEO and this wasn't the image I had thought of when I first started off the label so I decided to close everything up while I was still in the situation of not being to care for the kids......"
Hiphopplaya continued to press further questions about the issue, asking, "Was the decision made solely by you without the consent of the musicians under your label?" to which Vasco responded, "I didn't ask what the kids thought of it and I just decided to shut it down by myself."
The interview slowly transitioned back into talking about the album, asking if he's still on good terms with the other artists despite his decision, considering they featured for his album but he stated, "The album was produced before the disbandment and you can't declare if someone's on good terms or not based off of that, however we're still on good terms and I still think good of them."
I remember finding out about his divorce a while back and the news was officially announced at the end of last year with the reason for divorce being differences in religion and what both wanted in life. They gained a lot of press during the time Vasco was tackling his way into mainstream as the former couple was 10 years apart in age and his ex-wife was also a college student/home shopping model. It was unfortunate to hear that they decided to divorce after a year and 5 months into their marriage but what got me was when he said that they'd continue to live together for the sake of their son. I'm not sure what's happened since I checked but I can assume that he doesn't seem to be doing amazingly well with all the cigarette pictures reeking on his Twitter as well as Hiphopplaya concerned about his drastic weight loss due to stress.
Anyhow, it's even more unfortunate that the label itself decided to disband since I felt that with Vasco knocking on doors into mainstream, the young artists like Jay Moon had an opportunity to experience it also. Plus, they had a small group of artists who I found to be really talented that could knock out the other labels in the current scene, which again is unfortunate.
Other than Crybaby's news of joining a new label, there has been no news of the other artists it seems and we'll just have to wait to see if they'll make it out on their own or a hopeful and prospective label picks them up.
