The Rookies: Tagu Jams Live Recording Session

And... we're back! It's been 10 months and 3 days since we last posted a live recording session created in our little office in Yangon. We had taken a recess: to rest and recover. A time off is required every now and then, especially when you're producing creative content from a country at war. We have taken a collective deep breath, assessed what we had accomplished and set our goals for the future. Now with renewed energy, we are back! And what a treat we have for you! Our first hip hop live recording session at Tagu Jams.

The Rookies debut album “D” reminds us of the time when hip hop first exploded into the music scene in Myanmar: MHA, 2nd Generation Hip Hop, Roadside Rhymes (လမ်းဘေးကာရံများ). Their songs take us back to the early 2000s when we used to spend hours at tea shops with close friends, talking about life, music and everything in between. The four members of The Rookies frequently hung out at tea shops and wrote their songs together. They even have a song called “Tea and Cigarette” where they rap about the importance of ‘tea shop culture’ for their music. “D” may be their debut but their lyrics reflect their deep connection to Hip Hop and Myanmar youth culture.

Being avid fans of the popular anime ‘One Piece’, they found the term “Rookies” a fitting description of their group, their vibe, their philosophy as an up-and-coming rap group. Antrax and Glux-Z (Pronounce the Z in a British accent; he wears glasses, get it?) were highschool friends and started making music after their matriculation exams. This was around 2016. Moe Tain had been around in Hip Hop community since 2011. He’s a dancer who helped set up many street dance events in Yangon. Be Amby (phonetic wordplay on the acronym of his real name: Bhone Myat Bo aka B.M.B) has been around the underground rap scene for awhile; his single “Your Friendly Neighborhood” was a hit among a new generation of Hip Hop listeners in Myanmar. He’s a good friend of Moe Tain.

It was in 2019, when we had so many underground music shows in Yangon, that the Antrax, Glux-Z and Be Amby first met and quickly found themselves sitting at a tea shop. They talked. They bonded. January 11th, 2020, Moe Tain’s birthday, was the first day the four of them got together for the first time. Moe Tain and Be Amby had been working on “Tea and Cigarette”. It was originally their song but soon Antrax and Glux-Z joined them at the studio and started dropping bars on the track as well. Their tea-fueled collaboration grew organically and a few years later, they had enough songs for their first album: “D”.

We started planning for this live performance almost a year ago in July of 2023. From the very beginning, we wanted this hip hop session to be complimented by instruments and a live band. Bassist Aung Khant (from the Pone Yape session) and guitarist Thwang Ling (from the Cry of Hope session) rejoined us here to be part of the live band. Ye Khine Oo (from The Resonabilists) was supposed to on the drums but he had to drop out in the last minute. Young drummer Berry came to our rescue. He had one day to rehearse with the band and performed in this live session coincidently on his 18th birthday. For "Tea and Cigarette", we wanted to create a rap battle environment: the rappers all standing up with the DJ playing the track. But our collaborating artist Lalit was not DJ-ing in this session; she was actually playing her own live beats on MPC workstation.

The Rookies performed three of their songs from “D” - Tea and Cigarette, Aquarium and Dreaming On U. We hope you feel their youthful energy, hear their philosophy, and dance to their flow and their melodies. We hope you enjoy this session as much as we enjoyed producing it. It is good to be back.

SET LIST
00:00 Tea and Cigarette
08:41 Group Intro
09:35 Aquarium
17:37 Dreaming On U
25:40 Credits

THE ROOKIES
Glux-Z
Antrax
Be Amby
Moe Tain

FEATURED ARTISTS
Lalit
Khaing Pwint
Thawng Ling
Aung Khant
Berry
Nyi Lin Han
Yu Nandar

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The Rookies on YouTube: @TheRookies-cr3zi

● Fresh independent music from Myanmar ●

Established in 2013, Tagu Films is an independent film production house from Myanmar. For a decade, Tagu Films collaborated with various Myanmar independent musicians to produce music videos and live recording sessions. Tagu Music, established in 2023, is a new step towards producing more Myanmar music contents, such as Tagu Jams, that capture the vibrant local independent music scene.

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