Lee Mingu (리 밍구), better known as SHATEAU, is the son of Korean parents, born on June 18, 1988 in Asunción, Paraguay. He lived in his homeland until he was 20 and came to Brazil in 2008, where he lived for three years and worked as a sommelier in a bar in the capital, São Paulo.
In 2011, he went to South Korea to continue his career as a sommelier, but decided to start his dream, to work with music. He taught himself to play the guitar at age 15 and bought a guitar upon arriving in his parents’ home country, where he began his professional career as a musician, music producer and DJ.
His DJ career in South Korea took off and then he started getting offers to work as a producer, working mainly as a ghost producer for big names in the Asian scene (South Korea, Japan and China) until 2018.
The artist has already gone through several segments, produced music in the indie, electronic and hip-hop genres, spent a season in Japan and China, thanks to these experiences the producer is currently experimenting with other genres and subgenres in his work.
In 2019, he returned to Brazil and signed a contract as a music producer with the K2B agency, where he served as music director producing content for YouTube with influencers such as the idol SPAX (former member of BLANC7). The partnership between the two worked, they worked together on other songs during the period of social isolation at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and lived together for three months during the idol’s stay in Brazil.
This year, he plans to produce and start collaborating with Brazilian artists and play shows across the country. His latest work is “Can I” in collaboration with influencer LEO HA, which was released in December 2022 in Brazil. Check out the interview!
You were born in Paraguay, lived in South Korea, Japan, China and also in Brazil, and now you are back in this country. What motivated you to return to Brazil and what are the main differences you felt in relation to the music market?
Honestly, there is not much difference, of course there is a difference in culture, language, food, but not much difference in the general context. I always liked the public and Brazilian music, and I also have my friends in Brazil, for me it is a challenge, in relation to the music market in music itself there is not much difference, but the public here in Brazil I think is one of the most energetic and positive compared to other countries.
We can say that the kickoff for his career in the music industry was in his teens, when he learned to play the guitar by himself. In this sense, we can imagine that your interest in instruments made you become a musician, but how did you start working as a music producer?
For me it was just a hobby to create music, play instruments, but over time the hobby remained a job in itself. I started putting my music on soundcloud, I got a lot of emails and DMs for collaborations, some contacts wanted to hire me as a songwriter too, and well, now I’m still in the market as a music producer.
You’ve worked with different musical genres, like pop and rap, to name a few. Even so, he has already expressed a desire to test more musical genres. What genres would you be interested in venturing into professionally that you haven’t tried yet?
I don’t have a favorite music genre so far, and I like to work with different genres too, but I love bossa nova, I love it very much, at the end of my career I want to produce a lot of bossa nova songs with Korean language.
His most recent work, the track Can I, features the vocal participation of influencer Leo Ha. How did this partnership come about?
In 2018, I was in Brazil in a company called K2B, I was a producer and music engineer, as it was also a company of youtubers, it was there that I met LEO, I had to cover with artists from the company and there the idea of collaboration came up with him.
It is no longer news that South Korean cultural movements are trending worldwide, reaching both young people and adults, as is the case with k-pop and other issues. How do you feel your recognition has been in the countries you’ve been to and what was the most memorable moment in your career?
Unfortunately most of my music is not characterized as K-Pop, of course I have songs of this genre that I made in partnership with SPAX as well, but my music is more based on hip hop and pop house, but still the kpopper audience He also supports me a lot and I want to thank these guys a lot for the affection and welcome I have received. I don’t think my most defining moment has yet arrived, but I want it to be here in Brazil.
Before going to South Korea, his first job was as a sommelier in a bar in the capital of São Paulo and there he ended up continuing his career for a period of time, but decided to start in music. What was the sign that it was time to take this new direction in your life?
Sometimes to change the course of your career or your life you don’t need a sign, in my case it was something natural, I loved working as a sommelier but I also loved listening to music, so for me it ended up happening naturally, things changed course organically and now i’m in the music business.
A curious fact is that when your DJ career started to take off, you were called to be a producer, including work as a ghost producer, in the case where you don’t sign your own productions. As much as this type of work was, do you believe it could have brought more experience X recognition on your resume?
Working as a GHOST PRODUCER was one of the reasons why I’m working, I’m still working without signing some projects. For me, the resume on which my music is placed is not very important. Every experience and every job for me is very valuable and important, they are worth more than seeing my name on all the projects I work on or on the list of charts and so on.
When you returned to Brazil in 2019, you signed a contract as a music producer at the K2B Agency, where you worked in the production of several youtubers and digital influencers. What did you think of working with this new generation of “internet artists” and what explains the phenomenon they have caused?
I always separate musical artists and influencers, of course there are times when influencers become musicians, but it’s very different between musicians and influencers. I have respect for both, but a musician is always a musician, anyway, it was a great experience and I believe that the reality we are living in now ends up generating a greater demand, hence this phenomenon. At K2B, the vast majority of influencers were of Asian origin and they have been very popular on social networks since then, I believe that the rise of Hallyu and K-Pop itself ended up contributing directly or indirectly to this phenomenon in their case.
Follow Chateau on Instagram
*With Regina Soares