(Fixes typo in film name in fourth paragraph)
BEIJING, March 4 (Reuters) – Forget nomads, heavy tents and
epic songs chanted after a long day of herding across vast
grasslands. These days, Mongolian young people are entranced by
rap.
Born on the mean streets of U.S. cities and fanned by
frustrated youth, rap and the hip-hop culture it extols are
helping young Mongolians express the stresses of dealing with an
increasingly urban society and all its woes.
“Continue like this and you’ll be an alcoholic, you’ll
forget your family and parents, there go your loved ones,” raps
Ganbold, who lives in an impoverished district of Ulan Bator,
the Mongolian capital.
The skinny 16-year-old is one of several Mongolian rappers
featured in “Mongolian Bling,” a 90-minute documentary by
Australian Benj Binks that showcases how hip-hop has become a
popular vehicle of expression for the nation’s stress.
“The film is really about what it means to be Mongolian in
this day and age. It is not a music documentary, though there is
a lot of music in it,” said the first-time director, who first
discovered that hip-hop was popular in Mongolia on a 2004 visit.
“I could have told this story through rock, or maybe even
through techno. But hip-hop was the most in your face. The
scenes reflect the urban culture.”
The film premiered at the Revelations Film Festival in Perth
last year and will be screening at Beijing’s Asian Film Week in
March, though it has yet to be shown in the country where it was
made due to other commitments on Binks’s part.
Ganbold, who hails from one of Ulan Bator’s “ger” districts,
where many residents live in traditional tents without access to
electricity and modern sanitation, said he sang to try and
humanise alcoholism, one of Mongolia’s worst social problems.
“This is about how most Mongolians despise alcoholics. Some
people see them as not even human,” explains Ganbold in the
film. “Others see them and feel sorrow for their addiction.”
Like their counterparts in the United States, many of these
pioneering musicians take up the banner of social justice in
their lyrics as well, rapping about violent crime, domestic
violence, alcoholism and the rampant political corruption.
“The candidate will go home thinking he has fooled the
crowd,” raps Gee, another respected young artist. “In the ocean
of globalisation, Mongolia is like a boat without paddles. You
better start to care before we … drown.”
“The hip-hop here is very much modeled after U.S. hip-hop,
but the lyrics are socially charged, about family, wealth,
corruption,” said Todd Smith, the general manager of the
Christina Noble Children’s Foundation in Mongolia, which helped
put Binks in touch with some of the people he filmed.
“Mongolian people are very musical, and hip-hop is an
important medium for young people.”
SOCIAL, POLITICAL SIGNIFICANCE
Music has had social and political significance since before
the country became democratic in 1990. One song, “Ring the
Bells,” which just skirted the strict censorship of the time, is
recalled by many Mongolians as one of the final weights that
helped topple the socialist government.
Now hip-hop is helping people cope with the results of that
freedom, not all of which have been for the best.
The film threads together footage of people speaking, street
scenes, live music recordings, and traditional religious and
nomadic practices, focusing on how hip-hop has built itself up
within the more traditional culture.
One segment features trash talk by Gee about an older and
more softspoken star, Quiza, and how he has signed a contract to
help promote an alcoholic beverage company.
“Hip-hop is not about commercialism.” Gee says, between
insults such as “I hate Quiza. So commercial … Bling bling.
Goddamn. That’s not hip-hop.”
But Quiza, whose real name is Battsengel, has been working
with Amnesty International for several years, symbolising the
responsibility many artists feel to make life better for the
next generation.
The real star of the film may be Gennie, a 26-year-old woman
called the “queen of Mongolian hip-hop.”
One of Gennie’s topics is middle-aged women abandoned by
both their husbands and the government to poverty. “The stubborn
state says they’ve done a lot for them,” she raps sarcastically.
“Gennie also raps about how the land is being destroyed by
mining, the plights of domestic violence, the lack of support
single mothers get from the state,” Binks said.
“There is a real blend of old and new. In the city you get
horses going through, and you have grandmas who are supportive
of hip-hop.”
That may be because hip-hop is seen as a way of giving the
voiceless power – and hope.
“It’s a tool for healing society,” says Quiza in the film.
“Hip-hop is like a weapon to express your words and opinions.”
(Reporting by Beijing newsroom, editing by Elaine Lies)
