Wednesday, February 14, 2007

Beleive it or not - Rinpoche Rapper



Ever Heard of someone named Singa Rinpoche? Apparently he is a young Tibetan lama obsessed with glamour and had a fan following even before he crossed over into art and business. His latest venture is a music CD titled "Wish you Well" released in Taiwan by Forward Music.

The genre is R n B and Rinpoche mixes Tibetan Buddhist chants with modern R n B sound sung my himself. In his songs he uses three languages - Chinese, Tibetan and English.

Rinpoche claims to have studied Tibetan Buddhism in India and Nepal for three years. He is currently 30 years old and is banned from entering Taiwan due to his bad behavior on a previous visit to Taipei.

Anyways whether we approve of him or not, his music is a sure hit and he is hot. One more name to our list of Tibetan celebrity Rinpoches. Who else is out there? Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche from Bhutan, Neten Chokling Rinpoche...

Listen to the tracks here

Watch his music video here

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think its great that other mediums are found to express the Buddhas teachings, especially popular ones among the youth, and they carry the right message. But Singa Rinpoche (so called Rinpoche) is obviously doing this for the cash, if he were a true monk he would be acting like so many other Buddhist monks releasing CD's, giving his money to good causes or supporting monastery's, not driving fancy cars and wearing designer labels.
As he is breaking the Buddhist moral code of a monk and creating a wrongful impression on monks, I would not support him as would not want to be attached to his karma in anyway.

Anonymous said...

Most of the English rap tracks were written and sang by Warren Fox.

Anonymous said...

When he made his tour to Malaysia, the Malaysia Buddhist Assoc received a letter from H.H Chetsang Rinpoche (Singa Rinpoche's guru) urging the Malaysia Sangha and laities not to receive him and asked Singa Rinpoche to continue his training in Buddha Dharma.

Anonymous said...

Singha Rinpoche does support monasteries very generously. Aparently, half hte year he tours, and the other half he shaves his head and renews his vows as a monk, living accordingly. Anything that spreads the dharma and connects people to their buddhanature...