An English rapper who goes by the name of Gobshite is sitting in a bar near Sanchaung Street. Running up his arms are inked tributes to his musical heroes—punk band Black Flag, hip hop pioneers Onyx, cult ska and reggae label Trojan Records—and outside, somewhere, skulking about, is his latest muse: the Yangon street dog.
“I like the fact that they are either loved or hated,” he says. “There’s no middle ground. People either feed them and take care of them, or I have seen people kicking them, treating them like shit.”
Gobshite (he insists on the moniker) recently released a track on the homeless pooches that has been doing the rounds on social media; even a couple of Myanmar’s parliamentarians have shared the video.
Including the lyrics, "We play fight with grimy canines and mucky paws, and pray for more than nga ya when playing lucky draws," it mixes shots of the strays with the Leicester-born rapper roaming Yangon’s streets and bars.
This is not Gobshite’s first rodeo. The 35-year-old released his first album 13 years ago before teaching English in Cambodia, Czech Republic, Greece, Vietnam, and now Myanmar for the past two years.
In almost all those countries he’s left a trail of celebrated beats mixing the local lingo with his cutting observations. He talks to Myanmar Mix about his upcoming and probably last album, “The Unintelligible Rantings of an Undercover Devil Man,” along with writing, life in Myanmar and, of course, dogs.
It’s about time somebody rapped about Yangon street dogs. What do you enjoy about them?
I share an affinity with them, in more than one way. They are kind of downtrodden, either hated or loved. Half of the Yangon population either love them or want them put down. And I have a whole crew of them by my house. Every night when they see me walking down, they guide me home and make sure I’m safe. I have a whole posse of them around me, like an escort of rabid dogs. I saw similarities between them and myself, and I thought it would be a challenge to write a song in which I liken myself to them.
I was bitten by one in Ngwe Saung beach. I had to motorbike to Pathein to get some emergency jabs. I left it until the next day and then I read online that you have to get it dealt with within 24 hours and time was ticking, so I had a very rapid drive to Pathein on some of the worst roads I have ever ridden on, and then got to the hospital, which was one of the worst hospitals I have ever been in, and then got my jab and rode all the way back. Even that didn’t dampen my thoughts and feelings towards the dogs. I like the way they are territorial, they’ve got their corner. Dogs on other corners know if you’re friends with dogs from another corner; they can kind of smell it on you. It’s strange. They get a bit stand-offish, maybe a little growl when you walk past them.
Do you have a dog?
I have a pet snake, actually. I didn’t want a dog because they would ruin the living room and bite my furniture. Snakes are super quiet. You don’t need to take them for a walk. It relaxes me, taking him out, letting him slither around. I have only taken him out [in public] once, drunkenly, to the shop to buy more beer at about 2am. The staff were not impressed.
Tell us about some of the other songs from the album.
The album is quite varied. Some of it is written fictitiously; I am a character in a horror film, for instance. Another song called “Love and Hate” is about the things that are dear to me and the things I reject completely. There’s "Golden Land," which is another track about Myanmar. I have also got a follow up to a track that I made a few years ago called "Jasmine Pants," about a backpacker called Rupert who came to Southeast Asia to find himself. Fast forward 10 years and Rupert is now an NGO worker living the highlife. There has always been beef between NGO workers and English teachers. The former tend to look down on the latter a little bit, so this will give me a chance to level the score.
How did you record “Golden Land”?
I recorded the vocals at Launch Beats studio in Yangon. My good friend Double P is the engineer who works there; he’s also an MC. I have a verse for his tune so I will collaborate with them on a Myanmar-UK track pretty soon, which they also intend to make a video for. That was my plan initially; to meet some locals, make tunes together. I have tried to set myself a goal: 10 tracks, one album, six months. Let’s get three videos done; let’s get it finished. Hopefully it will be completed within the next two months. It will be released on HQ Records, a Leicester record label. It will be my first album released on a label. Everything else has been independent.
So you might make some money with this one?
It’s not about making money for me. It would be nice. But I never set out to write something because I feel that messes with the creative process. You start thinking about what people might want to hear as oppose to what you want to say. There are a couple of tracks on this new album that not everybody will like. They are a little dark. Because it could be my last album, I really want to say everything I want to say.
Even if this album is a hit, it will be your last one?
After seven albums, I am running out of ideas. I don’t want to keep rehashing the same old things, saying the same stuff over again. I got my point across and said what I wanted to say. I would like to move into beat production.
How has your rap changed as you’ve aged?
My word play and grasp of the English language has definitely improved. Some of the concepts for tunes all those years ago were pretty laughable. I’m more blunt these days. I don’t believe in holding back anymore. I just believe in saying it as I see it.
What are you naturally drawn to writing about?
What I see everyday in the street; how people behave. I’m making more and more tracks about this new generation that seem to be hooked on smartphones and technology, and the fact that human beings are becoming less connected. In Myanmar, smartphones and SIM cards were not available a few years ago. Now it’s having a massive impact.
In some of your previous raps, you’ve embraced the local language, such as Khmer in Cambodia. How much Burmese are you rapping in this album?
In “Golden Land” there’s a few Burmese words. In “Yangon Street Dog” there’s one time I say “nga ya” when playing the lucky draws. When I lived in Greece, I released a tune called “It’s all Greek to me” and in that I used a lot of Greek language. Wherever I move I try to incorporate the local lingo into the tunes so that the locals can relate to them a bit more.
And for those who don’t know you out there, how would you describe your rap?
I am pretty versatile. I can do slow, thoughtful, conscious raps or I can do rapid-fire, double-time, nasty, vicious, vitriolic raps. It depends on the beat that I’m given. If I hear an instrumental, I usually know straight away what kind of way I will attack the beat. I get the beat, listen to it, think about the flow. Sometimes just one or two words and I get the concept.
