Author: Ramtin V. Moghaddam (APA310)
Prelude:
My research on Asian American artists, led me to a better understanding of the Asian American Aesthetics. By reading about different Asian American artists I came to a conclusion that there is more to their experience than just immigrating and absorbing the new cultural tradition. Some of them had to literally go through hell to get to United States. Some of them experienced the worst conditions and some of them died, and once they made it to get to United States, their battle with their emotions was not over. They had a lot of problems that they had to deal with, such as: green card, citizenship, money, food, and a place to live. Now a lot of this group of people they gathered all their emotions and perspectives about life and they expressed it through their art, which could be a play, a book, a painting, or music.
Biography and Analysis:
Biography and analysis have to come together, because without the journey Prach Ly experienced, the art that he composed wouldn't be inspired.
Prach Ly, a 21-year-old Cambodian Raper who was born in 1979 in Cambodia, a country which is bounded on the east by Vietnam, and on the west by Thailand, and on the north by Laos, and on the south by the Gulf of Thailand. Prach Ly escaped Cambodia when the Khmer Rouge's reign of terror was going on. The communist Khmer Rouge wanted to turn Cambodia into a large agrarian commune. The reign of terror ended in 1979 and left the Cambodian's dream of self-sufficiency behind. Instead their country was invaded by Vietnamese army, which caused a nightmare of slavery, cruel exercise of power, torture, and the deliberate and systematic genocide of their race, politics and cultural group. In this tragedy nearly two million people died. They were tortured and killed in killing fields in worst ways. Kids and infants were all killed in the most horrible way one can imagine. If the Cambodian could speak any other language than their native, they could get killed. Prach Ly was to young and innocent to understand what was going on and he was lucky enough to have a family that was smart and lucky enough to escape. They immigrated to the U.S. in 1983. They stayed at a Thai refugee camp on their way to U.S. By 1983 their new home became Long Beach. "We landed in America with nothing but flip-flops, T-shirts, and a couple of pots and pans," prach says. "I remember when my mom first stepped on American ground-I saw tears coming out of her eyes. That stuck in my head. My dad said that from there, it could only get better. Where else were we supposed to go? We just came from hell-where else can you go but up?"
After the Cambodian Rap artist arrived in U.S., he never got to see the color of his country again. Instead he heard stories from his parents, the most horrifying stories that can be our nightmare was reality to Prach Ly's family and that affected Prach ly a lot. Prach Ly was very disappointed of the fact that barely anything was mentioned about Cambodia in the textbooks or popular literature. Even their own people did not want to talk about the horrifying nightmare that they had experienced. At this point Prach Ly was very frustrated and his only way out of his frustration was, to shout his message through a microphone. At age 21, he started rapping to young Cambodians about the nightmares that was going on in their countries, about feelings and emotions that have not been released out of their bodies. His first CD was a 17-song album that was recorded in a garage in Long Beach, California. He did not have money to have the latest equipment for his studio, but he was talented and determined enough, to make the best out of his studio. His style is very original and old school when it comes to his music production, and because of that, if he makes a mistake he has to do everything over again. His music got played in bars, house parties and unknown places, but nobody knew whom he was. His songs were about death, forced labor and broken families. Unfortunately, because of lack of Cambodian population or the popularity of his music culture in U.S., no American record labels were interested in his music. Even though his music was original, real and it was coming from a harsh background nobody cared. But one day, something incredible happened, he found out that his music had the biggest impact in Cambodia. He could not even believe it, because he had never sent any of his tracks to Cambodia. He did not have any clue how his music got there, but without him knowing it, he was a rap star in Cambodia. Through a telephone interview from Long Beach Prach Ly said, "The lyrics, the message had been inside me a long Time and I wanted to release it," Some of his song were in his language, Khmer and the rest in English. A Cambodian guy who had the Galaxy CD shop in Phnom Penh, was very impressed with his music and the lyrics. One of his friend who bought the CD in Long Beach California, played this CD at a party in Cambodia. The owner of the CD store in Cambodia was so impressed that made 50 copies of this CD and put a yellow-and -green CD cover on it and called it "Cambodian Rap" and start selling it in his CD store. In Cambodia there are no rules of copyrights, so that is why the CD storeowner felt comfortable to do that. Nguon, the CD storeowner sold almost 300 copies of the CD and allowed Cambodia's largest music store, CD World, burn copies. His project was also successful in that store, he sold more than 400 copies there. His music became popular among a specific group of Cambodian young kids that had access to MTV and English language classes. The reason why he was so successful in his country was because those urban youth could relate to the song and the stories that were told in those songs. Something that they never heard before in public and now there is one person who reveals the dark chapter of the Cambodian history.
Prach Ly got involved with rap music that's where the Asian American Aesthetic comes into picture. He was raised in Long Beach California and he was surrounded by Rap music. It was clear to him that he could not relate to any of them besides the beats and the style of it. Having Rap music around him and having those bad memories of childhood and everything else that he had to go through in his life, lead him to writing music. He combined the rap beats with the nightmare stories about his country. He rapped about a dark chapter that has been kept closed inside the Cambodian people for years. He felt that it was his responsibility to point out those facts and reveal them to the nation.
When I read about his life and experiences he went through, it makes it very clear to me that he was a product of Cambodia and United States. It clarified me that, this is what Asian American means, a mixture of Asian and American experiences and cultures. To me every Asian person experiences the Asian American Aesthetics without knowing that it exists. This assignment made it very clear to me that Asian American Aesthetics is the journey and experiences that an Asian person goes through from the day that they were born to the day that they live now and so on to their future. Aesthetics is who you were, who you became and who you will become. As Margo Machida says in her article, " Despite the established and rapidly growing presence of Asian in the United States, it is striking that Asian American expression seldom finds its way to a larger public consciousness, which is informed by stereotypes mostly originating from the legacy of European Orientalism and from popular media. In the visual arts (also audio arts, by R.V.M), Asian American contributions are rarely being recognized as distinct, in ways that African American or Latino art forms, for example, are." (Course Package)
Prach Ly is still working on his music and songs writing. Currently he is working on this project that he calls it Dalama. He made up this name out of the mixture of "Dalai Lama", "deliemma", and a little bit of "trauma." His CD will be called ' Dalama..." the Lost Chapter." He is planning to get his CD ready for March 3, 2003. Good luck Prach Ly, we feel you and we are with you.
This is the Bootleg CD cover of Prach Ly's Album in Cambodia
