Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage Search this
Type:
YouTube Videos
Uploaded:
2023-09-12T13:39:11.000Z
Views:
5,935
Video Title:
No-No Boy - No-No Boy - "Little Monk" (Official Music Video)
Description:
Listen to No-No Boy's "Little Monk," from his Smithsonian Folkways album 'Empire Electric.’ No-No Boy describes “Little Monk” as the heart of his new album. The song is a personal reflection on his time spent at Vietnamese Buddhist teacher and writer Thích Nhất Hạnh's Blue Cliff monastery in upstate New York. Sung with a collected exuberance over a nearly baroque arrangement of guitars and strings, "Little Monk" reflects on No-No Boy's process of embracing difficulty and contradiction, and of feeling calm in the face of injustice. Directed by Julian Saporiti, Emilia Halvorsen Saporiti, and Little Monk Panda Scout Julian Saporiti: lead vocal, instruments, programming Emilia Halvorsen Saporiti: harmony vocal, lap steel P.T. Banks: harmony vocal Kristin Weber: violin Purchase/Stream: Smithsonian Folkways: https://folkways.si.edu/no-no-boy/empire-electric Bandcamp: https://nonoboy.bandcamp.com/album/empire-electric All other platforms: https://orcd.co/no-no-boy-empire-electric There are seemingly infinite layers of meaning to be found in No-No Boy’s third album, Empire Electric. You can listen closely to singer-songwriter Julian Saporiti’s lyrics, which juxtapose true stories of struggle from throughout Asia and its diaspora with Saporiti’s own reckoning with intergenerational trauma. You could also let the majesty of Saporiti’s songcraft wash over you, his captivating melodies cloaking those themes in a veneer of hope and ecstasy. But the deepest storytelling happens at the sonic level, as sounds drawn from across the Eastern hemisphere mingle freely with distinctly American instrumentation – banjo and koto, lap-steel and guzheng – while electronically manipulated field recordings of rushing water, chirping birds and other natural sounds ground us in the now. Adventurous and affecting, Empire Electric offers a vision for a new kind of folk music, one that tells unorthodox stories through unorthodox means and finds new pathways through our tangled roots. No-No Boy: https://www.nonoboyproject.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nonoboyalbum Twitter: https://twitter.com/NoNoBoyMusic Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nonoboysongwriter Smithsonian Folkways: https://folkways.si.edu Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/smithsonianfolkwaysrecordings Twitter: https://twitter.com/Folkways Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/smithsonianfolkways Support our work! Become a Friend of Folkways: https://folkways.si.edu/friends-of-folkways The content and comments posted here are subject to the Smithsonian Institution copyright and privacy policy (www.si.edu/copyright). Smithsonian reserves the right in its sole discretion to remove any content at any time.
Video Duration:
3 min 35 sec
YouTube Keywords:
music folk "Woody Guthrie" "Pete Seeger" Smithsonian Folkways old-time non-profit
