Onra – Chinoiseries Pt 2
Back in 2007, French Vietnamese hiphop artist Onra returned from a trip to his ancestral home in Vietnam and returned with a stack of local vinyl. He then released an album called Chinoiseries, mostly short instrumentals built upon the records he’d found.
He said at the time: ‘I almost felt like an explorer discovering a forgotten treasure. I bought 30 vinyls, most of them in poor condition, back to the crib, and started making beats with some material I wasn’t used to. I worked on this album through 2007. I think this is the perfect soundtrack to any hip-hop head going to South East Asia. It reflects all the different sides of those countries: raw, sad, culturally rich, amusing, kitsch and romantic.’
We played some tracks from it in the Secret Archives of the Vatican Podcast back in March 2009. Unusual and genuinely creative use of cultural artifacts is something we like.
Anyway – good news! A second volume is on its way! We’ll review it here and play some tracks in the podcast as soon as we can get our sticky paws on a copy of it.
Here’s a video exploring his working process.
