Here’s an outstanding album that’s blown me from track no1. The mysterious French-Vietnamese producer Onra has produced an album in the vein of J Dilla, Madlib the Beat Konducta’s Indian album and Galapagos 4’s Deejay OM. Chinoiseries is an instrumental hip hop album with 32 short tracks constructed from samples taken out of old and rare Vietnamese records.

The act of sampling exotic music is both good and bad in a sense, good because these old and hard to find records get recycled and recontextualized and brought to the ears of different audiences but also bad because it can theoretically be seen as western cultures looting peripheral cultures and using their music in different contexts. I’m not trying to spoil the fun for you and me though because, Onra is Vietnamese and who am I to judge the artists anyways!. Chinoiseries is an awesome tale from southeast Asia, a fresh contender in soulful and obscure hiphop and a nice way to lend your ears to different music of the world.