Joey Boy | Thailand Rap Hit

Get the CD in a single zip file here.

I previously blogged about this CD. I did not know at the time who the artist was. Nor was I then uploading things in a single zip file. Thus, this repost.

Found last year in a Vietnamese CD/Video store on Argyle Street in Chicago--this is quite honestly one of the most bizarrely satisfying purchases of a musical nature I have ever made.

First, let's take a look at "what's up" on the cover. Note that "Rap" is in quotes on the back. As it should be. I have never heard rap like this. I'm fairly certain that, unless you have already heard Thailand's Joey Boy, you probably have never heard rap like this either.

Well, so what is it, then? I'll go out on a limb and just say that it's quite likely the single most carnivalesque melange of rubbery cartoon-y dance-y hip-hoppy trippy-y influences from around the world ever burned into polycarbonate plastic. It is simultaneously the flarfiest and rockin'est thing I have ever heard. I have quickly grown to love it almost as much as life itself. Could any language be less suited to rap than Thai, the most soft-spoken-deferential-un-pissed-off-sounding language on the planet?

But why is that woman in the sunglasses on the cover pointing to her nose like that?

Watch Zom Ammara's fabulous music video "Playgirl," in which Joey Boy makes a cameo: