Bochan eventually joined her father's band as a singer, and her brother played keyboards. They'd play at weddings, birthdays, community events... anywhere Cambodians gathered. Bochan would sing cover songs of American classics, and someone else would sing the Cambodian songs. But they would never try to mix the Cambodian songs with the English ones or change any of the music up really. Bochan says people were comfortable with those familiar songs.

Bochan started her career as a singer in her father's band.

"If I came and sang one of my own songs, I would definitely have a lot of blank stares coming back at me," said Bochan.

Soon after Bochan finished high school, her dad got sick with liver cancer and passed away. Bochan decided to make the leap and release her own solo album in honor of her father. The album, called "Full Moon Monday," is a blend of hip hop, soul music, and the classic Cambodian rock that Bochan grew up with, like the song "I Am 16."

Here's how that song originally sounded, when it was sung by Cambodian singer Ros Sereysothea in the 1970s:

Bochan says Ros Sereysothea was extremely famous and at the height of her career before the Khmer Rouge took over and began a genocide, killing her and most other singers and intellectuals. That's why holding onto the music was so important for the Cambodian diaspora. Bochan says the problem was that songs like "I Am 16" was all her family ever played.

Bochan wanted to cover "I Am 16" on her first album, but she wanted to do it differently and create new memories with the song. Here's how it turned out (warning...there's an ad before the song, but it's a great song and equally great music video):

The song features local hip hop artist Raashan Ahmad. Bochan says she wanted it to appeal to the Cambodian youth born raised in the Bay Area.

"To put hip hop to it, to give them something familiar, where they can connect to it, that closes the generation gap between the first generation and second generation Cambodian refugees," Bochan says.

Bochan's song "Believe" looks at the struggles of refugee families. She wrote they lyrics after working as a counselor for at-risk Cambodian kids. Bochan says unlike her own family, who were educated in Cambodia’s capital city, she was working with Cambodian refugees who came from poor, rural villages. Parents would often be illiterate in the own language and unable to thrive in urban environments like Oakland.

"We’re looking at immigrant families where the parents don’t speak English and the kids," Bochan says. "So now there’s a discord between mom and dad. There’s already a culture gap, a generation gap, right? And now you don’t have the one thing to keep the family together: language."

Bochan is coming out with a new EP this year. It's a blend of dance music, jazz, funk, but it also includes a cover of one of her dad's songs from the 1980s. It's pretty much a mash-up of Bochan's two cultures. Bochan says she wouldn't do it any other way because her dad always used to tell her that, as a Cambodian raised in American, she gets to create her own music and her own identity.

"I get to choose my own culture. And in doing so I get to choose the best of both worlds, is what he used to say. There are wonderful things about American culture, and there are things that aren't so great about American culture. And the same goes for Cambodian culture. And those words always stuck with me because I think that’s what it means to be Cambodian-American. Here I am, I have lived and chosen the best of both worlds."

Bochan will be performing in San Francisco this Saturday at the Ninth Annual Asian Heritage Street Celebration. Her music video for "I Am 16" will be screened as part of the celebration at the Asian Art Museum on Saturday, May 18th at 2:09 pm and again at 3:09 pm.

You can listen to our interview with Bochan here:

Bochan HuyBochan Huy

Cambodian-American Singer Fuses Khmer Classics with Oakland Beats