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Burma’s hip-hop resistance spreads message of freedom
Loading ...Thxa Soe’s music gives country’s youth a focus for dissatisfaction with the junta despite strict censorship
Originally at Guardian.com.uk
They know every word. Boys, bare-chested and sweating in the April heat. Girls clutching digital cameras, their faces streaked with paste to protect them from the sun. They answer the call-and-response lines with increasing excitement. By the time Thxa Soe reaches the chorus, the crowd have taken over. With fists pumping the air, they roar his words back at him.
This is a summer music festival, soaked in alcohol and drenched in sweat, the same as anywhere. But this is Burma, and nothing is the same here.
The barricades keeping the audience from the stage are ordinarily used to control rioters. They are ringed with razor wire. At the very front of the crowd, two novice monks, wrapped in the maroon robes that have come to symbolise defiance in Burma, dance and play air guitar. And everywhere, the Tatmadaw – Burmese military officers – armed and helmeted, watch over all.
Full article at Guardian.com.uk
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