BackEmpowering Khmer Youth to Express Urban Life through Hip-Hop
Submitted by Tiny Toones
This proposal is a creation of the volunteer crew from Tiny Toones Cambodia KK, Tango, Cobra, Short, DJ K'Dep, Kristin and Lee-Anne
Background of Tiny Toones Cambodia
Tiny Toones Cambodia was started in 2004 by an American deportee named Tuy Sobil (aka "KK"). When KK first arrived in Phnom Penh, a group of local children learned that he was a famous break-dancer in America. Eventually, those children successfully convinced KK to teach them to dance. Word soon spread about this Cambodian American who happily taught break-dancing for free, and the seeds for today’s Tiny Toones were sown. As time passed and KK developed personal relationships with these children, he realized how closely their lives paralleled his own youth growing up poor in inner city America. This concerned KK as the path that he saw for these children was the same path of drugs, violence, and gangs that he had taken long ago. KK decided to use Tiny Toones as a vehicle to keep these children away from the negative aspects of their current situations while developing their physical and expressive sides through breaking. To date, Tiny Toones is highly successful. Through the volunteer work of KK and a few of his closest friends (also deportees) they are now providing outreach classes in break-dancing, Khmer literacy, and English literacy to over 500 at risk-youth in the greater Phnom Penh area. Tiny Toones regularly performs free break-dance battles in local Phnom Penh parks to very large audiences and is on several occasions requested to perform at paid events around Cambodia such as the American Embassy and the Cambodiana Hotel.
All of the work that is done at Tiny Toones is on a voluntary or stipend basis. KK and his crew are highly committed to the at-risk youth of Phnom Penh and this is evidenced by the extreme high regard that the children pay to Tiny Toones and especially KK. His ability to communicate positively with these children through Hip-Hop is widely known and has been captured in many international TV, Radio and press articles.
Description of our Project
This project has been designed to introduce 2 other art-forms from the Hip-Hip genre to the current Tiny Toones offering of Break-Dancing. The two art forms that we have chosen are Dj'ing (Emceeing, Beat Mixing, Scratching); and Rapping (Rhyming).
Since 2004, Tiny Toones Cambodia has been running Break-Dancing (B-Boying and B-Girling) classes 6 nights a week from our drop in centre located in central Phnom Penh. These classes run for 3 hours each night (6pm – 9pm) and are open to at-risk youth aged 8-24 to attend. Classes have grown over the years and up to 50 children will attend on any given night.
The development of this project stemmed from four key elements:
1. Using the hip-hop genre and its ability to provide avenues of communication and expression to at-risk youth. Adding DJ’ing and rap lessons to the break-dancing classes will provide the children an additional range of vehicles for expression.
2. The need to provide more opportunities for the Tiny Toones youth to develop key skills in critical thinking, problem solving, healthy emotional expression, anger management, and self promotion.
3. The need to develop a uniquely Cambodian Hip-Hop culture that is created and performed by Cambodians, for Cambodians, and is no longer reliant on moves, beats and music developed in more dominant cultures.
4. Extend Tiny Toones by formally appointing KK as a full time creative director. This will allow for classes to be run during day time hours for the children. It will also provide time to promote the Tiny Toones brand and available programs to more of our target audience.
Tiny Toones wishes to continue to promote the positive integration of Hip-Hop music and culture with Khmer society and culture. Hip-Hop arts have proven to be incredibly beneficial to the at-risk youth of Cambodia. The creation and development of this Cambodian Hip-Hop culture is engaging, educational, creative, culturally sensitive, empowering, therapeutic, and fun!
A keystone of our work is to promote artistic expression to the youth as a way to handle problems instead of resorting to drug abuse, violence and emotional suppression. It is our dream that as our children develop they will take this message and lifestyle choices to other at-risk youth and become positive role models/community leaders through their behaviors and skills.
Objectives of the Project
The key objectives of this project fall into 3 different categories:
1 Development of a Khmer Hip-Hop genre and culture to reflect the way that youth feels about themselves, their family, their communities, their culture, and their beliefs.
2 Through the development of Hip-Hop, teach the Tiny Toones children new skills such as song-writing, scratching, self-expression, individuality and originality, team work and co-operation, problem solving, critical thinking, and self promotion.
3 Extend the Tiny Toones Brand to a wider audience through offering more choices of self-expression within the Hip Hop culture.
The Cambodian people and culture were subjected to years of invasion, violence and repression from various sources. The youth that come to Tiny Toones tend to come from at-risk environments that are the outcome of this destruction. This means that their family’s environments tend to be very poor, have members who abuse alcohol and drugs, are working within the sex industry, and/or often use violence as an emotional outlet. Our aim is to provide these children an avenue to express their negative feelings in a healthy way, and to break the destructive cycle of poverty. It is envisaged that this project will provide our children the skills necessary to develop employment opportunities using Hip-Hop while promoting the Tiny Toones healthy culture and life-style. It is also our dream to extend the reach of the Hip-Hop genre into regional Cambodian youth culture and develop a wide ranging art form that becomes a means of sharing and communicating for its target audience. Another key objective of the Tiny Toones program, including this project, is teaching the youth how to succeed. Proficiency at break-dancing is only enjoyed after hard practice and many mistakes. Cambodia currently has an educational system that is taught completely by rote. This style does not develop critical components that a person needs to be successful such as problem solving, critical thinking, team work, trust, and learning through trying. Tiny Toones, through Hip-Hop, provides the children a safe and supportive environment that allows them to develop these skills while having fun, being happy, and building strength in their minds and bodies.
Implementation of the Project
On the receiving this funding Tiny Toones is ready to start straight away. The success of this funding proposal will allow the drop-in centre to offer classes in Dj'ing, rapping, and break-dancing. Though we will not be able to extend this full offering to our outreach Tiny Toones family they are free to attend any classes at the drop-in centre and participate in our Hip-Hop performances in Phnom Penh if they are able to make it.
Time Frame of Project
This funding proposal is for one year. On the success of this one year it is planned that DJ’ing and rapping will continue as a standard part of the Tiny Toones offering to at-risk youth.
Our plan and milestones for year one are:
Month following funding (Month 1) delivery– introduce DJ’ing and rap writing to the children.
Month 2 – Work with the children to develop the skills required to create their own beats and rap music.
Month 3 – Publicly perform at least 1 Hip-Hop number (dance, beat, and rap) that has been created by the children of Tiny Toones.
Month 6 – Have at least half of all performance material fully created and performed by the children of Tiny Toones.
Month 12 – Tiny Toones can perform a complete collection of dance, beats, and songs that have been created solely by the children of Tiny Toones.
It is hoped that our year 2 part of this project (Funding not requested in this proposal) will be extended as follows:
- Produce CD's and VCD's of Tiny Toones music and dance for sale.
- Integrate DJ'ing and Rap into our offering to our B-Boys and B-Girls in our out-reach program.
- Continue to promote and develop Hip-Hop as a positive art-form for self expression and communication.
Planned Output of the Project
There are two distinctly different outputs planned from this project.
1. The development of a complete repertoire of Cambodian Hip-Hop dance, beats, and songs from Khmer at-risk youth for other Khmer at-risk youth.
Measure – All performances in month 12 of the project are being conducted as per our project plan above.
2. Through the Hip-Hop genre, continue to provide the Tiny Toones children new skills and avenues for self expression and development.
Measure – The current B-Boys and B-Girls of Tiny Toones feel confident and competent at using DJ'ing and rap in addition to their break-dancing to express themselves, while attracting more at-risk youth to the Tiny Toones family.
Target Audience of Project
Our target audience is all at-risk youth in Phnom Penh. Tiny Toones, via its outreach program in Phnom Penh, currently serves 500+ at-risk youth. The out-reach program provides lessons in Khmer literacy, English language, and of course Break-Dancing. For the first-year of this project Tiny Toones will only be adding the DJ'ing and rapping components of Hip-Hop at the drop-in centre on a six day a week basis. Hopefully with the addition of a larger space and vehicle (requested via other funding applications with Bridges across Borders) Tiny Toones will be able to bring the children from the outreach program to the drop-in centre so enable them to participate.
Dissemination of Project to target Audience
There is no greater dissemination method than word of mouth and reputation. In three years this communication method has taken Tiny Toones from delivering services to eight at-risk youth to our current 500+.
The positive environment, fun, commitment of the staff, and the security that these children feel at Tiny Toones is what is communicated by them and attracts others. The key component of all of this is the respect and reverence that KK has in the at-risk youth community of Phnom Penh. He is widely recognized through his break-dance performances, his interviews on national and international television and radio, and his unique look. KK's life story and his success through overcoming a life of crime and drugs inspire them and they desire to make him proud through their commitment to dance and a healthy life. Children naturally gravitate to KK and desire to be part of his Tiny Toones family.
In addition, the Tiny Toones children themselves regularly perform free outdoor dance battles in public spaces that attract huge audiences. They are also regularly on national television and radio. This means that the children that are part of the Tiny Toones family are considered to be fairly ‘cool and hip’ in their local communities and this makes other children want to be part of it.
How will this Project impact on our target Culture?
We envisage two different impacts on not only our target audience but also on the culture of Cambodia.
1 The development of a distinctly Khmer hip-hop culture that provides at-risk youth an avenue of self expression, communication, and a method to break down class and race barriers.
2 Through the addition of two other art forms from the Hip-Hop genre Tiny Toones can continue to develop and produce proud, strong, confident, communicative, and expressive youth that can inspire and influence other at-risk youth to make healthy and happy life choices.
Hip-Hop has a unique ability to communicate and engage at-risk youth worldwide. This is the reason it is so popular and continues to attract the same communities from different races, cultures, and languages. It is our intent to add Hip-Hop to current Khmer culture as another form of expression and communication. It can provide the disenfranchised youth of Cambodia a safe and healthy tool to communicate their feelings about themselves, and their environment, to the wider Cambodian and International audience.
Who is critical in making this Project successful?
Tuy Sobil aka ‘’KK”
“KK” was born in the Thai Refugee Camps in 1977. His family was one of the many Cambodian refugee families who resettled in Long Beach California but never took out full American citizenship.
KK was 8 years old when he first learnt to Break Dance. He progressed quickly in the dance scene and in addition to winning a number of Break Dancing Battles he was highly respected by his peers. Sadly, KK's life took a wrong turn into drugs and gangs. A decade of incarceration for theft was followed by deportation in 2004 to Cambodia – a country in which he had never lived. The word got out that he used to be a break-dancer as a kid. Nine kids approached him and asked if he would teach them. Although he told them that he had quit break-dancing years ago, the kids persisted. They came by one night with a break-dancing video they were trying to learn from and showed him some of the moves they had learned. That was too much for him – KK broke down, laughing, and started teaching them. Now three years on from his return to Cambodia, the 30-year-old deportee is using break-dancing to help at-risk youth to express themselves. All of KK’s work to date has been voluntary. He has instituted a strict regime of discipline, honesty and co-operation. KK has ensured that Tiny Toones has a strict no drug user’s policy. Here is what KK has to say as to why he does not allow drug users into the Tiny Toones program: 'Mixing drug kids with clean kids is dangerous because it's easy to get the clean ones addicted. A drug kid will always be broke, so he will find a clean kid that he know has money and find a time when he is bummed out. Then the drug kid will say "come with me, lets buy something and hit it together, and it'll make you feel better." Almost every time that line will work if you're talking to a poor kid who never sees his parents and has no role models. One drug kid can "fish" an entire clean neighborhood like that and get them addicted, dropped out of school, and joined up with a gang. All of these kids were in and out of jail for many years because of drug and gang related crimes.'
Chan Samnang aka DJ K’Dep
DJ K’Dep is a 20 year old Cambodian DJ and Rap artist. K’Dep has been writing and performing his own rap for the last 3 years and in the last year he has added DJ’ing to his repertoire. He has released a number of CD’s over the three years that he has been performing and he currently has a hit single with ‘Min ka aye’ (roughly translated into English as ‘Ready or Not’). A regular on television and radio he has been lucky enough to work with a number of Khmer music stars.
DJ K’Dep is a very popular Khmer Hip-Hop artist. He currently hosts a radio show on 107 FM between 6-7pm Monday-Friday playing both Hip-Hop and Khmer Love songs. In addition he showcases his own DJ'ing and rap at the very popular Love Orange Khmer dance club five nights a week. DJ K’Dep is also contracted to travel on Sundays to 24 different districts in Cambodia to perform his Khmer Hip-Hop show. His love of Hip-Hop has always been strong but he did not become a performer of his own rap music until he had broken his four year struggle with drugs at the age of 17. His association with Tiny Toones has come through his respect and admiration for KK and what he has been able to achieve with the at-risk youth of Phnom Penh. DJ K’Dep is very excited about having this opportunity to work with Tiny Toones and expand the Hip-Hop genre with Cambodian youth.
What is our level of Internet Visibility?
In addition to our own website www.tinytoonescambodia.com, Tiny Toones has vast media and internet visibility. Tiny Toones has regularly been on national wide Television and Radio shows and has been written about in various national and international press and publications. A Google search on Tiny Toones Cambodia (or Tiny Toons Cambodia) results in 62,000 responses. Tiny Toones has its own Wikipedia reference and has a large number of videos for viewing on You Tube.