Straight Outta Ulaanbaatar

DARKHAN, Mongolia – After the old Russian woman in the top bunk went to sleep, Sumar brought out his laptop videos.

As our train slowly passed through the pitch-black Mongolian grasslands, Sumar eagerly showed me what he'd downloaded at university in the Siberian city of Irkutsk. First he went through his collection of basketball clips, where members of various NBA teams made incredible shots during the last seconds of important games. Then came a video shot at art exhibition of a Scandinavian man creating shadow puppets using sand in time to a pre-recorded soundtrack. After that, Sumar clicked on the folder called "Music."

He opened the first file. The name was Cyrillic but I recognized the video from the first few frames. It was Nelly's "Hot in Herre," the most popular rap song of 2002.

"I love Nelly," Sumar said. "He's my favorite." We then watched most of the Nelly catalogue, including "My Place," "Country Grammar," "Flap Your Wings," and that song about chilling with my boo. Sumar then asked if I wanted to hear some Mongolian music, to which I quickly replied, "Yes!"

He queued the video on the computer, waiting for Windows Media Player to load. At this point I had only been in Mongolia a few hours, and had just heard the language for the first time as I snuck across the Russian border in a van full of traders, with hidden human cargo in the back seat. The beat started rumbling, a mix of deep bass rumbles and quick drum hits. A Mongolian flashed across the screen, dressed in urban clothing on top of a building at night. He started to rap in a guttural burst, delievering his lines in a way that seemed half rap-half chant. Accompanying the music were gritty shots of Mongolian urban life: monks fighting, police brutality, strippers, poverty and crumbling Soviet buildings. This was the music of Zaya, a song called "Tears of Ulaanbaatar," his first solo recording away from Mongolia's biggest rap group Tatar.

The beats, the songs, the setting: I loved it all. Perhaps this is the way people felt when they heard Led Zeppelin or the Beatles for the first time, falling completely in love with something so unexpected. I knew that I needed to get this record, immediately. Sumar only had the video, but suggested that I try to buy the record in the capital. He wrote down the name of a couple record stores in Ulaanbaatar and included a couple of Mongolian swear words to boot: Alna shuu! Muu nohoin gölög min! If I remember correctly, this translates to something along the lines of "Fuck you! I fucked your mother last night!"

The next morning I set out to find the Zaya album. At the State Department Store they didn't know anything about it. Hi-Fi Records said it wouldn't be out for another two months. The Hip-Hop Clothing Store no longer sold music. This being Mongolia, the options pretty much ended here.

With no music, I collected stories about the rapper. People in Ulaanbaatar told me about concerts they attended for Zaya's old group Tatar. They talked about the group incited a riot and the police started beating the crowd. A Peace Corps worker in Beijing told me that he'd seen the video six months earlier, but hadn't heard anything about a release. A Mongolian on my floor here in Tsinghua – who, the first time he met me, said, "What up Motherfucker!" – definitely wanted to buy the album, but definitely didn't have it yet. Another student offered to mail me a copy when she went home on spring break.

Then last night I was bumming around on Youtube, when I put in the name "Zaya" and "Ulaanbaatar." One result appeared, and it was the correct one. So now, thanks to the magic of the Internet and a poster named Munko, I can share the video with you. Enjoy: