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www.groovekorea.com / March 2014 44 MuSIC & ARTS Edited by Elaine Ramirez (elaine@groovekorea.com) J ason Waller came to Korea as an English teacher, as many expats do, but it was in his blood to hoist himself out of a pro- fession that didn’t inspire him. He worked day and night over four fast years living in Seoul to carve a niche for himself as a hard-working and talented DJ, performer, emcee, radio host and CEO of his own company, Planet Hustle — living up to his self-coined moniker, Pinna- cle TheHustler. By first impression, he is a funny, charismat- ic guy. His music has been compared to Nas, Twista, Jay-Z, Eminem and Lupe Fiasco, but he has a distinctive flair and style of his own. In the middle of last year, Pinnacle packed up his Seoul home and returned to his native Cin- cinnati to expand his reach in the West. But the city would be hard pressed to realize it, as he’s been back and forth some half a dozen times since then. “My mail is gonna be going to Cincinnati. I will rest there, but I plan to be on the go a lot. I’ll hit different states in America and Asia, and I’m trying to work on some countries in Europe,” he says in an interview during one of his stops late last year, a few days before setting off stateside again. “I’ll still be DJing, which I love, and also I’ll be doing marketing services for my business Planet Hustle. I’m excited that I can have my own entity that I can work at.” This attitude is a reflection of what Pinnacle is all about: Once he decides that a barrier can be broken, he’ll trample it down and set off to the next. When he outgrew Korea and realized it wasn’t so far from the U.S. or China or even Italy, there was nothing stopping him from go- ing global. “My message, eve rything that I’m about, is progress, forward movement and not being where you were two weeks or two months ago. Get out of complacency,” he says. “This country can feel like a bubble. It’s like you get used to having your apartment provided; things are easy, and then you have to get back out into the real world.” He owes his broadened perspective largely to the 2008 leap he made to Korea, where he has come to see how he fits into the bigger picture. “(Living here) has influenced me as far as expanding my perspective on a lot of things,” he says. “When you change your per- spective on life, you change your perspective on your art. Being out here has made me bet- ter understand my relationship with the world.” And a lot of that perspective, he says, has to do with being one of the few black people in Back to the real world never still, never complacent, the sky’s the limit for pinnacle Thehustler Story by Sophie Boladeras / Photos by Colin Dabbs and Dylan Goldby
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