Kong Nai, chapei master

...working backwards here. On Saturday the 28th I interviewed chapei Master Kong Nai. Chapei is like the Cambodian version of the Delta blues. The instrument is a two stringed long neck guitar -- historically and 'properly' made of three distinct types of wood (one for the face, neck, and back). Thing is, these woods are so rare and/or expensive that almost nobody, not eaven Nai, has a chapei with all three woods. They improvise.

I learned all this talking with Cambodian Living Arts (or 'cla' as everyone calls it) who are working to record Nai's music, preserve the songs, and encourage Cambodian youth to at least give it a listen, along -side their MTV. Preservation is key, since chapei music is based on rhyming, improvised lyrics -- with two players often sitting across a stage composing verses for and about one another like battling MCs. Nai, who is one of 2-3 Chapei players to survive the Khmer Rouge is among the best at this spontaneous composition. I spoke with Kong Nai in front of his home in the Bassac Slums, just south of the Royal Palace. Called Bou Ding slums by local – a reference to the one permanent structure, or building, looming over the one story slum dwellings, the slum was originally filled with artists who liked the proximity to the nearby theater, but a fire in 1994 destroyed much of that building. Now Bou Ding is famous for prostitutes, not artists. But the land is now in a hot area for developmet, and as tenants move or are engouraged out, their simple wood homes with corrugated metal roofs are demolished and replaced with coils of barbed wire – to discourage anyone else from taking up the land.


In our interview, Nai was generous and open, talking about everything from how he met his wife, to the bout with chicken pox that left him blind at the age of 4, his life under the Khmer Rouge, an of course, his love of chapei. When he interrupted the conversation with song, people would stop their bikes, or come out of their homes to listen. Even without amplification Nai's voice and the music of the chapei carrys through these dusty alleyways. When asked if he had a favorite song, or one he is proudest of, he played a song about liberation from the Khmer Rouge.