APRIL 20, 2001 VOL.27 NO.15

Hard Rap On The Rouge
A pirated CD stuns young Cambodians with their history
By GINA CHON Phnom Penh

Asiaweek Pictures. The pirated CD.

Can you be famous but unknown? Can you unwittingly electrify the youth of a homeland you left as a toddler? Can lyrics written in California bring a new generation to face Cambodia's greatest modern horror? This is the miraculous story of how a 21-year-old refugee named Prach Ly accomplished all that, to his own astonishment.

About a year ago, Chanline, a Phnom Penh radio and TV music host, was stopped in his tracks at a local nightclub when he first heard a stunning CD called The Khmer Rouge, Khmer Rap: "If you don't do what they say/ they'll let the AKs spray/ Anything goes/ So be careful with yours/ It's terrible/ The Year Zero." Chanline's mother had told him about life under the Khmer Rouge. Now here was her story, blaring out in the machine-gun rhythm of rap.

Asiaweek Pictures. Prach Ly, the voice behind the mystery rap that has taken Cambodia by storm.

Like Chanline, many young Cambodians were transfixed by what they heard. Hundreds of pirated copies of the CD now circulate in the capital. For listeners, the English and Khmer lyrics are an epiphany of sorts. Students aren't taught much about the 1975-79 Khmer Rouge years, when an estimated 1.7 million died. The CD, then, functions as something of an education. "It's amazing," says Sophoann Sope Hul, a local DJ. "He's the first Khmer artist who is actually revealing something ? and that touches a lot of people."

But the rapper is nameless. "Who is he?" wondered fans in Phnom Penh.

Across the world in California, Prach Ly was oblivious to the fate of his first foray into recorded rap. The Cambodian-American had been unable to interest any U.S. music companies in his homemade, tough-minded CD. Prach, who runs a karaoke shop in Long Beach, shrugged. To him, the ugly lyrics simply told the truth. Recording contract denied, Prach gave copies to his Long Beach pals and set to work on his next project.

But one CD found its way to the land of his birth. And there it hit exactly the right chord. "How can they sell it without my permission?" Prach asked when Asiaweek first told him of his breakthrough. Then he adds, "That's cool, though. I'm happy it's popular over there." Prach's family fled Cambodia when he was only 4 years old, after suffering separation and deprivation during the deadly Khmer Rouge experiment in agrarian utopia. In a song called "Welcome," Prach captures his parents' relief at reaching the U.S.: "As soon as our feet hit the ground/ My mom busted in tears/ No words can describe/ A moment so rare/ And right by her side/ My father was there/ Staring at the sky/ Holding each other/ Realized we survived/ The genocide/ and still together/ ' twiye bong khum loc yhay loc thah/ and praise to Buddha/ cuz from this point on/ it can only get better..."

Prach listened to the stories of his family. "I had aunts and uncles who were killed," he says. "My parents almost died, too, and they remind me of that every day." But the terrible reality didn't hit home until he saw the film The Killing Fields when he was about eight. Sound bites from the movie are featured on his CD. "It gave me goose bumps because it's the first time I could picture what had happened," he says.

But Prach has never returned to his homeland, unwilling to travel until he's granted U.S. citizenship. So how did his music make the crossing? DJ Sophoann, who often visits his former home of Long Beach, believes he introduced the CD to Cambodia last year. "It's an inspiration, something new in Cambodia for the new generation," he says. Not everyone is ready for it, however. Last year, when Cambodia began debating a law to bring Khmer Rouge leaders to justice, Sophoann voluntarily cut the CD from his playlists. Too controversial, he felt.

Nonsense, counters Chanline. "The new generation has to keep in mind who the Khmer Rouge was," he says. "We don't want to forget about what happened in Cambodia." In Long Beach, Prach agrees. "You can't deny it," he says. "All you can do is remind people what happened so it doesn't happen again." In a song called "Child of the killing field." he raps: "Now I'm on a quest/ For the truth to reveal/ Cuz I still feel the pain/ Of all the lost souls/ From the Khmer Rouge regime/ that turn Cambodia/ into a hell hole."