On a rising Hip-hop show, School Rapper, Mad Clown and his teammate rapped about the seriousness of school violence. The song, ‘Eom Seok-dae,’ which is the name of a character from the novel, “Our Twisted Hero” gives us a message about school violence.

In the novel, Han Byeong-tae meets Eom Seok-dae, the president of a fifth grade class who controls everything in his grade. Eom Seok-dae forces students to follow him with threats and violence. Byeong-tae tries to fight him at first, but the other students support Seok-dae. Byeong-tae loses his everything and gives in to Seok-dae’s power.

However after Seok-dae starts treating him specially, granting him more power and allowing him to gain popularity, everything turns back to normal and gets better. But when they go to sixth grade, Seok-dae’s power breaks, because the new teacher has sensed the strange distribution of power among the classmates. This is the story showing the ugly face of school violence. Mad Clown and his teammates rapped about this story to raise awareness about the seriousness of school violence.

I believe this kind of movement can greatly influence the issue of school violence and it could serve as a positive role for the emerging art of rap in Korea.

Na Seung-chel
Graduate School of English Education

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