p r a C h ' s
a r C h i v e 2 0 0 1
By Poli Bou
Friday, June 9th, 2000
What the heck is Dalama? "Dalama: the end is just the beginning," is the name of praCh�s first album. In case you are wondering, it�s not even a real word. During his explanation of the title, he made various references to the Dali Lama, but it�s really just something he made up because it sounded cool. "Dalama" is the second of a three part series that will tell one big story. The first one has yet to be made because he is still considering whether he wants it produced or not. The third one is in the midst of production and is scheduled to be released later next year. praCh wanted to make it clear that "Dalama" is just a demo album. - ( read full review click link ) -
DALAMA...the garther ( promo album release party ) By Aaron Van
Thursday, August 31st, 2000
Occasion: Promotion/Celebration Party for Prach's Debut Album
Time: 8 P.M.
Date: August 18, 2000
Location: New Paradise Restaurant, Long Beach
- ( click link to read more ) -
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AsiaWeek 4/20/01Can 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.
NewsWeek 7/02/01on a recent day he was more excited about meeting the town's mayor
at a local protest than about events 10,000 miles away in Cambodia,
his parents' homeland. So it was with some surprise that he received a
call from a journalist in Phnom Penh a couple of months ago informing
him that the CD he'd recorded in his parents' garage had somehow made
its way to Cambodia, where it was causing a sensation. Prach Ly, it
turned out, had become Cambodia's first rap star. And he'd never
even really lived there....Prach Ly's incendiary tales of Cambodia's
past, told in the defiant tones of rap,
hit Phnom Penh like a B-52 bombing raid.
"I've never heard any music carry information like this,
" says Kham Pouri, 21, a songwriter who runs a small Phnom Penh
CD shop and was mesmerized by the songs when he heard them at a party.
"I've never written a song about politics or society."
Everything 7/27/01One of the CD's Ly had given away made its way back to Cambodia.
One record store owner who heard the CD was so impressed that
he made 50 copies of the CD and started to sell them. Local radio
stations and dance clubs started to play the songs over and over again.
Young Cambodians, to whom the Khmer Rouge era was long forgotten
(glossed over in school text books, scarcely mentioned in popular
literature, older people hesitant to remember the terror of those days),
are fascinated with both the songs and the history lesson.
CNN 11/08/01Khmer Rap Cambodians tend to treat the genocidal Khmer Rouge
regime as a period to be forgotten: School textbooks barely mention
it, popular literature glosses over it, parents are often reluctant to
delve into their private horrors. Now, a brash new rap album is breaking
the taboos by telling young Cambodians about the darkest chapter of
their country's history. At parties, in bars and in homes around Phnom Penh,
the album has teen-agers buzzing about songs on death,
forced labor and broken families. "The End'n is Jus The Beginnin"
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