Unaffiliated with any major label, Sokun emerged separate but parallel to the rebirth of an original Cambodian music industry led by Khmer-American pop star Laura Mam\u2019s Baramey Productions, founded in 2016, and rap collective KlapYaHandz, which began in the early 2000s. (Both companies declined to speak with VOD for this article).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Following the loss of 90% of Cambodian artists due to the Khmer Rouge and decades of instability, Cambodia\u2019s music industry at first confined itself to cranking out karaoke knock-offs of foreign songs. Then, new production companies fought to invest in Cambodian creative visions to make spaces for successful artists, innovate upon Cambodia’s rich music history, and share Khmer culture on a global stage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With Cambodian rappers like Baramey\u2019s VannDa gaining tens of millions of views on YouTube, Cambodian rap commands more cultural capital than ever.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhy have hip-hop and rap been embraced in Cambodia and among the Cambodian subculture abroad, rather than other genres, like country and western?\u201d writes<\/a> Cambodian academic Linda Saphan. \u201cCambodian youth in Cambodia and in the diaspora com\u00admunities feel a discontinuity with the past. They are experiencing eco\u00adnomic disparity, social marginalization, and alienation from their history \u2014 commonalities with the African American urban counterculture that gave rise to hip-hop and rap. The social message was at the heart of the birth of rap music.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Cambodian rappers most committed to this ethos, like Sokun, have the least support and face the greatest risks. Despite rap\u2019s popularity, Cambodia-based artists forging the genre\u2019s identity often avoid even indirect social justice-oriented statements in their lyrics \u2014 what\u2019s known as \u201cconscious\u201d rap.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI would love to have the songs be more conscious,\u201d one prominent Cambodia-based music producer said, speaking anonymously due to fears of political blowback. \u201cThe younger generation is really aware of the power they have in their lyrics and their raps \u2014 they have the attention of the kids.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n That’s not to say the rap being produced is not entertaining and meaningful \u2014 at its best, commercially successful rappers share messages of chasing dreams and embracing Khmer identity. But the songs, however powerful, have typically been restricted to personal empowerment and positivity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe’re talking about a young music scene that’s still trying to find its voice,\u201d says Cathy Schlund-Vials, a Cambodian-American professor at University of Connecticut who researches Cambodian rap. \u201cBecause they want to form a scene and they want it to be nationally legible, but you can’t really do that if you work exclusively at cross purposes with the government. Nothing happens in a vacuum.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The price of building this mainstream Cambodian rap scene \u2014 and the contemporary music industry more broadly \u2014 is the absence of social justice commentary in most songs, arguably putting the genre at odds with its roots and one of its potential greatest strengths.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Rap music emerged from Black, urban American block parties in the 1970s. MCs embodied the defiant creativity, joy and rage of marginalized communities under siege from the violence of structural racism and white supremacy. In the decades since, rap has been uniquely positioned as the genre of choice to chronicle the global struggles of the oppressed, inspiring change from the Arab Spring revolutions<\/a> to the homegrown soundtrack<\/a> for Thailand\u2019s pro-democracy movement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The stakes of speaking to social issues are high and potentially deadly in Cambodia, where more than 150 individuals have been imprisoned<\/a> since 2019 on incitement and related charges for offenses ranging from social media satire about Covid policies to quoting a snippet of the prime minister\u2019s speech in a news article. Yet opportunities may still exist for expressing socially conscious rap, lying somewhere on the spectrum between Kea Sokun\u2019s \u201cI\u2019m opposed to the dictator\u201d and VannDa\u2019s \u201cI heard your b\u2014 she wants my d\u2014.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Much of the Cambodian music speaking truth to power emerged from a tight-knit rap community in Siem Reap, unaffiliated with commercial labels. Many of the rappers, like Sokun, first met in the wedding videography business where they gained editing and multimedia skills, sharing an interest in documenting the \u201ctruth\u201d about society, set to catchy beats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Siem Reap underground rap scene was tired of the romantic songs dominating Cambodian music and felt rap could bring something more raw. As rapper Dmey Cambo declared in his song, \u201cThis Society\u201d: \u201cI speak what I want to speak, I speak what I see.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dmey Cambo employed the images of slain activists like Chut Wutty and Kem Ley in his song cover art and his lyrics carried more than a whiff of insubordination: \u201cWhen powerful people fart, the rich stay and smell.\u201d His songs, like Sokun\u2019s, have earned him millions of views and hundreds of thousands of YouTube subscribers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Siem Reap\u2019s rappers recorded in several dozen underground \u201chome studio\u201d operations developed across the city. It was not hard to make music, and a mic, computer and a quiet space were all that stood between a musician and the potential for social media-fueled fame. Without much guidance, some rappers like Sokun relied on racial stereotypes and the nationalist rhetoric ubiquitous on Cambodian social media to express their grievances with the status quo, warping their messages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The rappers\u2019 autonomy also came with the responsibility of knowing how to navigate restrictions on expression, where the wrong lyrics could get them in trouble with authorities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI feel very, very pressured,\u201d said one Siem Reap rap producer in the aftermath of Sokun\u2019s arrest, requesting anonymity due to fears for their own safety. \u201cThey were attacking one to threaten 10. It broke our spirit.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n While this producer had gained hundreds of thousands of views on raps he produced on YouTube, the producer and their collaborators frequently engage in self-censorship, removing \u201canything that hits or criticizes\u201d from the lyrics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Brak Sophanna, an established Siem Reap producer, was frank about the tradeoffs he makes in writing socially conscious lyrics due to the fear of facing reprisal from authorities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe need to restrict our words,\u201d he said. \u201cI have many songs that I want to release.\u201d He has kept some of them to himself because he isn\u2019t sure how they will be received in the current political climate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Several years before Sokun\u2019s arrest, police visited the home of the outspoken Dmey Cambo in response to his efforts to \u201cspeak what I want to speak.\u201d He later told<\/a> the Phnom Penh Post: \u201cI will stop composing such songs and turn to write sentimental songs that encourage the younger generation to love and unite in solidarity with one another.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Rap arrived in Cambodia in the late 90s, ushered in by PraCh Ly, the son of Cambodian refugees in the Khmer enclave of Long Beach, California. A visiting Cambodian DJ got a hold of Ly\u2019s mixtape Dalama<\/em> \u2014 produced on his parents\u2019 old karaoke machine \u2014 and brought it back to Cambodia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ly\u2019s songs recorded the traumas of the Khmer Rouge regime, breaking taboos and documenting collective Cambodia memory. The Cambodian government attempted to censor the songs by fining radio stations. Still, the music spread.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIf you don’t address something, if you don’t talk about it, you can’t solve it,\u201d Ly said. \u201cFor me as an artist, I choose to speak clearly and freely. You know, I’m not giving subliminal messages. If I don’t like what the government is doing, I will likely say it. But I’m not there in Cambodia.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The notion of confrontational, hard-hitting rap is embedded in the Western, liberal mindset, said ethnomusicologist Jeff Dyer. \u201cIt comes out of this framing of liberalism that says, \u2018You are your voice, and you only are a person if you can speak truth to power.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"Rapper](\"https:\/\/vodenglish.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/2021-09-03-kea-sokun-cleansing-fire-1020x638.jpeg\")
![\"Kea](\"https:\/\/vodenglish.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/2021-09-03-kea-sokun-home-1020x638.jpeg\")