Aggrieved singer battles nasty cyber lynching

Hip-hop was considered a genre practiced by uneducated rough-and-toughs until Korean rapper Tablo broke onto the nation’s music scene in 2003 at the age of 23. Tablo earned a bachelor’s and master’s degree from Stanford University, and chose music over other lucrative careers, a fact guaranteed to gain notice in an education-obsessed country like Korea.

That attention has now backlashed on Tablo. For reasons unknown, netizens have formed a cyber lynch squad, insisting that Tablo faked his education credentials. One online community – “We Want Tablo to Tell the Truth” – saw its membership soar from 30,000 to 40,000 in a couple of days earlier this week.

“I’m the type of person who loves a conspiracy theory, so I just laughed at first,” Tablo told the JoongAng Daily yesterday in his first interview with the media after the online campaign got out of control.

“I thought nobody would buy all those rumors about me because they were absurd.”

The JoongAng Daily has examined Tablo’s college records and can confirm his Stanford degrees.

   
Tablo, a k a Daniel Seon Woong Lee, earned degrees from Stanford in 2001 and 2002. Netizens have waged a campaign questioning the singer’s education.
The Internet witch hunt has caused Tablo and his family extreme distress, he says – made even more diabolical because he’s done nothing to cause it.

“One of my family’s home addresses was leaked onto the Internet and my brother also received about 10 threat calls. ”

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During a nearly two-hour interview, Tablo sobbed when he talked about his family. Tablo, now 29, tied the knot last year with actress Kang Hye-jeong, who is famous for award-winning films such as “Oldboy” (2003) and the couple has a 6-week-old baby daughter.

“I want my mom and dad to be able to keep their chins up. Since my dad’s health is not good, I worry that this might be the last major event in his life.”

In recent years, two Korean entertainers killed themselves because of malicious postings on the Web. Actress Choi Jin-sil, once called “the dream of every man,” committed suicide in October 2008 and singer Uni in January 2007.

“I don’t care about restoring my public image,” Tablo said. “What I really want is that no one else is victimized as I have been by a combination of anonymity and malice [in cyberspace].”

According to Tablo’s original college transcript, he earned a Bachelor of Arts with Distinction in English on May 4, 2001 and a Master of Arts in English on April 4, 2002, through a co-terminal program, in which students study for their master’s degree before finishing their B.A.

Asked what paper he wrote for his master’s, which is one of the biggest questions on the Internet, Tablo said: “I wrote about 20 to 30 pages of thesis for every subject. It’s not like publishing a paper [under the co-terminal program].”

The transcript also showed he earned 16 credits of advanced placement from high school and another 12 credits from summer classes at New York University, which let him finish the program in three and a half years.

The JoongAng Daily also contacted Stanford University and obtained letters confirming Tablo’s degrees. One is from Tobias Wolff, Stanford’s Ward W. and Priscilla B. Woods Professor of English, and the other from Thomas C. Black, associate vice provost of student affairs and university registrar at the college.

Wolff, a well-known author, wrote: “This is to certify that the records of both Stanford University and the English Department clearly demonstrate that Daniel Seon Woong Lee (pen name Daniel Armand Lee), now known as the musician Tablo, received from us both a Bachelor of Arts with Distinction, and a Master of Arts.”

By Sung So-young [so@joongang.co.kr]
JoongAng daily