Punk and Christian pop aren’t normally thought of as natural bedfellows. But if there’s one place they can be, it’s probably Myanmar – the world’s most generous nation.
A new music video from UK-based Catholic pop band Ooberfuse focuses on Rebel Riot frontman Kyaw Kyaw, who both heads up a punk band and helps run an operation that delivers food to street sleepers.
Ooberfuse, who also released this wacky video shot in Bagan last month, were pretty shocked by the rough conditions in the commercial capital.
“Wandering around Yangon at night time was at times a frightening experience,” Cherrie Anderson, Ooberfuse’s front-woman, said in a press release.
‘In the raining season it is impossible to avoid the puddles of water and oppressive humidity.
“Although those we met, deprived of shelter from the basic elements, were hardened by the harshness of rough sleeping, when they saw Kyaw-Kyaw the children came running calling out ‘Brother chicken! Brother Chicken!’”
Kyaw Kyaw appears in the video as a generally slick presence, sauntering through the streets and handling business.
Anderson’s bandmate Hal St John doesn’t quite pull off this skull hat.
“Punk in Yangon is a movement, before it is anything else,” said Kyaw Kyaw in a press release.
“Buddhism teaches compassion so each week we buy as much food as we can carry and take it to the street.
“When we find children with their families sleeping along darkened street ways we stop to give them food and sometimes money.
“As a band [Rebel Riot] stands for fearlessness in the face of all these kinds of social challenges.”
