Cambodian hip-hop star coming to Poetry at the Loft
Poetry at the Loft presents Prach Ly in a Wednesday evening performance in the Mitten Building
REDLANDS Poetry at the Loft presents Prach Ly, the first hip-hop star of Cambodia, 7:15 p.m. Wednesday, March 9, in the Mitten Building.
Ly will be joined by Sharon May, editor of "In the Shadow of Angkor: Contemporary Writing from Cambodia," published by University of Hawaii Press. She worked in Cambodian refugee camps researching the Khmer Rouge regime for the Columbia University Center for the Study of Human Rights. More recently, she returned to Cambodia on a search for Cambodia's lost literary heritage.
Hosted by Sholeh Wolpe, this event is made possible through the generosity of the Performance Loft Producers and Poets and Writers Inc. through a grant they received from James Irvine Foundation.
Ly, 23, a Cambodian-American rapper from Long Beach, cut his first CD, "Dalama: The End'n' Is Just the Beginnin,'" in his parents' garage. He didn't have a mixing board; he used a karaoke machine and sampled sound bites from old Khmer Rouge propaganda speeches to create what he calls an "autobiography," reciting stories he heard from his refugee family to deliver a blistering history lesson about Cambodia's genocide.
He did the artwork himself, made about a thousand copies and passed them around to friends during Cambodian New Year 2000. Somehow a copy found its way to Cambodia, then onto Pnomh Penh radio, then into the country's booming bootleg business, where Ly's music was copied and distributed, without attribution, under the title "Khmer Rouge Rap." A year ago, an Asiaweek reporter tracked Ly down to let him know his album was No. 1 in Cambodia and he became the first hip-hop star in a country he had not seen since he was a toddler.
The Mitten Building is at 345A Fifth St. Admission is free. Information: www.sholehwolpe.com.Cambodian hip-hop star coming to Poetry at the Loft
