Rasmee Wayrana is an “Isan-born, Chiang Mai-based” singer from Thailand who has begun recontextualizing the rural music of Thailand, sung in the Isan language. Often considered the “country music of Thailand,” luk thung literally means “child of the field song.” Rasmee has infused the music tradition of her minority language group with “inspiration from soul legends like Nina Simone and Billie Holiday as well as Afrobeat grandmaster Fela Kuti” to create a modern sound with “global appeal.”
Listening through her EP “Isan Soul,” the second track on Rasmee’s 2016 album grabbed me by the throat the moment I started it. The groove is distinctively of the R&B tradition of the West, but the vocal production and rhythm has certain signifiers that tell you that the song was not produced in the West. Rasmee emphatically uses the language of her people and their music, which is widely denigrated by the majority Thai people of her country, in order to tell her own stories in her own words. Musicians like her are precisely why I continue to search for pop music sung in minority languages.
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