I Dream: Stop Dreaming and Destroy

Check out the song that rocked the nation, I Dream: Stop Dreaming and Destroy! They have just uploaded it!
http://www.stomp.com.sg/stompcast/

Sontol is dreaming

I Dream a lot while drinking Big Gulp... I dream .... the Sontol saga ....

The Idiot and the Mofo

Let's have some education, why don't people question the Singapore Idols, for example, every week they did renditions of music by famous artistes, why don't people question them? Is it because they are 'glossy' enough to be on TV? Is it because they are on TV and they can get away with it? Could that be a form of Parody?

Let's be sympathetic towards Sammy the Eminem Fan, as she is a big fan of Eminem, she waited throughout Sontol's set thinking that it was a real Hip Hop act, but no, she waited till the end by summarising everything to," He's Sucked!" Then, all eyes were on her, basically her argument was thin, partly because her lack of knowledge in the scope of performance. (can't blame a 17-year-old for that)

The performance was based on the idea of a poseur Hip Hop star, it was a burlesque act, a bad parody, an intentional devise or scheme to make the audience understand the notion of self in regards to fame and idolatry. From the beginning of the performance, one could actually register by seeing the appearence of the performer, with a wig and a winter jacket as he tried to execute a human beatbox. The performance grew into somewhat an act of destruction, meaning the performer was attempting to execute a rap performance or such, from his action, one will know firstly, he is not a rapper and secondly, it was not a rap performance.

For a comment such as," He's Sucked!", is something you can find in online forums or such where the audience can actually submit comment behind a mask with nicknames Eg, Cutieputtie. Nymphowhore. For that, they can get away with it, but for Sammy, she failed to defend her statement. For this, the public eye was disgruntled by the reaction of the performer who was first defending his work, second trying to understand Sammy's statement and thirdly, he was tired from his performance plus he could have chosen not to do the performance.

You can never make people understand when they are not willing to understand. DIg it Mofo!

parody |ˈparədē| noun ( pl. -dies) an imitation of the style of a particular writer, artist, or genre with deliberate exaggeration for comic effect : the movie is a parody of the horror genre | his provocative use of parody.

See note at caricature .
• an imitation or a version of something that falls far short of the real thing; a travesty : he seems like a parody of an educated Englishman.

verb ( -dies, -died) [ trans. ] produce a humorously exaggerated imitation of (a writer, artist, or genre) : his specialty was parodying schoolgirl fiction.

• mimic humorously : he parodied his friend's voice. DERIVATIVES parodic |pəˈrädik| adjective parodist |-dist| noun ORIGIN late 16th cent.: via late Latin from Greek parōidia ‘burlesque poem,’ from para- ‘beside’ (expressing alteration) + ōidē ‘ode.’

The Aftermath of Hip Hop Sontol

The list of tracks and excerpts from the freestyling attempt:

Track 1: Son of SIN: Say U Luv S.A. Tan

Most of the words spoken were about worshipping another human, about committing a lot of sins. Some of the lines;
" Hey I am a son of sin, I watch loads of porn, let me recommend ya freegonzo.com, its the fasting month, but I'm slowing down but my heart shoots up direct to the sky. Say you Love S.A. Tan! ( this offended 2 Metal/Goth dudes in front of stage who wanted to beat the shit out of me after the show) They had to send a security guard to escort me down to the lobby after the gig. At some point in time I felt like a rapper from da East Side.

Track2: I Dream: Stop Dreaming and Destroy!

A tribute song to the Idols, I sampled a track from Batisah's 'I Dream', overlayed with Sontol's Destroy track. Some of the lines: "Stop Dreaming! This is a Nightmare and learn how to destroy! You! Don't forget to smile to the camera, with a Big Gulp in hand (I had a big gulp as part of my props) and sip the night away! Look at me I'm cooler than coolio, but where's Jay-z, oh he's so busy..., I'm a rapper, but I can't rap, just wrap me with a wrapper and we can have our supper!"

Track 3: Indie: Hindie

A song about an Indie kid who loves Hindie music, I sampled Kootcha Koota hey overlayed with Lou Reed's Wildside bassline. It was a mad confusion, some excerpts:
" Yo is this Bhangra Night? I'm a fan of Sharukh Khan, Rajnikanth ...son of/son of, could you please show me some bhangra moves? I am an Indie Hindie, looking for a ragga muffin man, Hip hop to the bus stop you can' stop, I am Hip and I do hop, and I am Tip to the TOp, but does it matter to you?

It was my intention to slice through this whole Hip Hop Sontol get-up right after a Heavy Metal Band, as I thought it was pretty much a subtle transgressive act, but the audience was not ready for a Hip Hop Poseur, wel,l perhaps if Phua Chu Kang doing Hip Hop is a far much clearer picture.

And right after the performance, a 17 year old Eminem fan commented on my piece as a disgrace to Hip Hop, because she felt I was like a clown, and I was not Hip Hop enough to her taste. See more of the confrontation:

http://www.stomp.com.sg/stompcast/

The Return of Hip Hop Sontol

For those of you who are interested in getting to know, Hip Hop Sontol, come on down to Orchard Library on Wednesday evening! He will be groovin' and jivin' at around 8pm, right after the band Roulette. Bring ya Homies and we can start pimpin' and hustlin' where the wind is blowin' cause he ain't black, he ain't white, HE is COPPER BROWN, a good friend of James Brown...word to yr mama...

From The Attic: Love With Evol Kapitan at Armenian St.

A durational performance back in 2003 at the Substation, during the era of Evol Kapitan, the mimesis of Manic Jango. With music stolen form Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra.

Monsoon so Soon

The day was pretty much a sombre affair, Tzu Nyen was down with food poisoning and I was there at Caldecott Hill all by myself, 7:15am in the morning for Channel 8's morning show. But nevertheless, they talked to him over a live phone interview, so there was I in a TV studio filled with monstrous lights, and the unknown hosts with thick make-up, the male one kept adjusting his hair in between sets while the female one has a look of a poisonous vixen.

All of these in the name of publicity for the Singapore Biennale, for a while I thought I was already in Taiwan, but no lah... my conversation with the host was deadpan, literal ... with not a single tinge of humour. In my mind, all I wanted to do was to execute an electric boogaloo on site, but I was too tired lah.

I have always interested in the structure of a 'live' tv programme, the hows and the donts.

Well, left the station, reached school, left for the hawker centre for a cup of coffee and some prata, while reading Debord's Society of The Spectacle. As I came back, saw my tutor, had some smokes, and ended up having tutorial on Plato's cave, Deleuze, Nietzsche and Ilyad... Information Overload ... Thank god I had breakfast...

Then, met Santa Rob, went for coffee again, talked about thesis, life, narcotics, farming and Francis Ng. As the rain got heavier, we decided to stick around for lunch.

There was this girl who looked lost, came to me and asked for a turorial, ok cool, finally I am needed somehow. She told me, she was doing something on clouds and sky. And I said why? She said she wanted to share the feeling, and she could not decide between painting or installation.

I was flipping the pages of her sketchbook, and I saw a line," My mum is down with cancer, and I want to see her live through this."

Then I told her, your work is about spirituality and this is your journey.....

The Critique Session

The critique session went pretty alright, with 3 video presentations which was interspliced with a performance and a Q n A session. Now I can have a better sleep. Photos by Robert Guth.

Hip Hop Sontol: At Da Klub

After the controversial Hip Hop Sontol: Beatbox Special, I am honoured to bring you 'Hip Hop Sontol: At Da Club'. Its not fully edited, but good enough to watch.

Boxing The Beat with Hip Hop Sontol

Another rare treat for you Hip Hop fans, lots of pimpin and hustlin love from Mr Sontol Al Loyo.

Morning Haze

5:30 am, I am wide awake, I could hear the snores from everyone's room. My sleeping pattern is bad, Singapore is becoming more and more intelligent, the island, not sure about the people. We are more cultured perhaps, for there are so many cultural events every year. The University has a cultural centre, a Malay Heritage Centre, we are so in touch with all these cultural places.
Its a culture vulture in a helter skelter.

How does one know he or she is cultured? Maybe its the milk that we drink, or the way we talk, we can enunciate or articulate better with our opinions and ideas.

The Bin Ali of all Sontols

Installation of Sontol Al Loyo: The Elegy of A Man and His Weapon of Choice

After the opening of the biggest art event ever held in Singapore, I have been hearing a plague of unhappiness and all of the negativity that you could have ever received from the arts community. Well, what done is done, what we can hope for is for the better in the coming Biennale if there is any. There are some great works in the biennale, and those are really cutting edge.

Sontol Al Loyo is not the best works that I have ever done, but nevertheless the whole point of getting a celebrity MC to said it out in public is pretty much worked out to some of the Sontol objectives. I am at a point in my life where I question where am I heading with all of these ideas.

Sontol is a beginning step to something, let's wait...