Srey Channthy of Cambodian Space Project (Photo: Cambodian Space Project, Myspace)
Srey Channthy grew up in one of the poorest
provinces in Cambodia. She left home when she was 18 to try to make a
better living in the Phnom Penh, Cambodia’s capital city. She went from
working in the rice fields to becoming a singer of an international
Khmer psychedelic rock band.
Channthy moved to Phnom Penh, Cambodia’s capital, so she could
support her family back home in Prey Veng, a rural province in Northern
Cambodia.
“When I come to Phnom Penh,” Channthy remembered, “I work clean for house. One month seven dollar fifty, one month.”
$7.50 a month wasn’t enough to make ends meet. So when her roommate
told her she could make a lot more money as a massage therapist, she
jumped at the opportunity. But when Channthy went to meet her
prospective employer, she immediately realized she had been tricked. Two
men locked her in a room, tied her to a bed with electrical wires, and
told her she was now their sex worker.
“The man say, ‘You stay here. You never go out.’ I say, ‘What happen to me now?’”
A few hours later a woman in building heard Channthy’s cries for
help, and came to her rescue. She cut off the electrical wires around
Channthy’s wrists with a knife.
“She said, ‘Where you go now?’ And I say, ‘I don’t know.’ She said,
‘Go away, don’t come back.’ And she give me money, two dollar fifty. Two
dollar fifty enough money for me, I can go back to my village.”
But instead of going back to her village, Channthy stayed in Phnom
Penh and got another job at a construction company. When a co-worker
heard her singing to herself one day, he suggested another way to make
some extra cash: singing at karaoke bars.
So Channthy starting singing Khmer versions of western rock songs
from the 60 and 70s at karaoke bars, bands like Jimi Hendrix, The
Yardbirds, and Nancy Sinatra.
Channthy was working at one of these karaoke bars when she met Julien Poulsen, a musician from Tasmania.
The Cambodian Space Project – Chnam oun Dop-Pram Muy (I am Sixteen)
filmed in Soi Cowboy, Bangkok.
The Cambodian Space Project – Knyom Min Sok Jet Te (I’m Unsatisfied)
The Cambodian Space Project – House of The Rising Sun
Poulsen played Channthy psychedelic rock songs from famous Cambodian
singers from the 60s and 70s, like Pan Ron and Ros Sereysothea, Khmer
musicians who were influenced by western music introduced by GI’s during
the Vietnam War.
“She was very, very surprised that she had a met a foreigner, a
‘barang,’ who had all this stuff,” Poulsen said. “She was like, “Oh!
Oh!” She was very excited.”
Soon after, Poulsen said they decided to put a show together in Phnom
Penh, and the Cambodian Space Project formed. That was in 2009. The
first release was vinyl, called ‘Knyon Mun Sok Jet Te.’ It means,
‘Unsatisfied.’
The album is a homage to the many Cambodian rock singers who were
murdered when the Khmer Rouge took control of Cambodia in 1975. Poulsen
says even today Cambodia is still trying to recover the art and culture
it lost.
“To find a singer like Channthy,” said Poulsen, “is like discovering a
young Etta James or Nina Simone. She’s really the barefoot Cambodian
diva of the rice fields.”
Cambodian Space Project’s newest album includes famous songs from
Cambodian singers who were killed by the Khmer Rouge in the 70s. It also
has two songs written by Channthy about her own struggles to make it in
Phnom Penh. That includes the title track, “Not Easy Rock and Roll.”
“I never go to school. Not easy for me write song,” Channthy said. “I
go outside Cambodia not easy for me some time. Hard for visa. Some time
hard for money, some time for food too.”
In the past five years Cambodian Space Project has toured throughout
Europe, Southeast Asia, and even at the South By South West festival in
Austin, Texas. When the band goes back to Cambodia in between tours,
Srey Channthy becomes a bit of celebrity. Especially to young women like
herself, who moved to the big city in order to make a living beyond the
rice fields.
- Read More
- The Cambodian Space Project on MySpace
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