Washington, DC rappers Pacman and Peso have released a music video recorded in Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea, which has since gone viral. Escape to North Korea was funded via a Kickstarter campaign that put over $10,000 towards the unique and potentially dangerous project.
Pacman and Peso — Anthony Bobb, 19, and Dontray Ennis, 20 — told the Washington Post that the project was done with the hope of boosting their music careers. “No one’s ever been there,” Peso said. “No one’s tried to do the things we trying to do out of there. No one ever shot a video.”
Pacman and Peso, neither of whom had ever left the US before their North Korean sojourn, spent five days in the country in late November and according to a report by the New York Daily News, organised the trip through a travel agency who specialise in trips to the communist state.
Escape to North Korea depicts the duo taking public transportation, standing in front banners erected in the memory of Kim Jong Il and celebrating current strongman Kim Jong Un, walking through public squares filled with oblivious guards, and rapping near monuments like the Arch of Triumph.
“We saw monuments, we saw [Kim Jong Il’s] embalmed body, we saw people working in rice fields,” Pacman told the Washington Post. “It was different, but it wasn’t scary or what I thought it would be. I expected to not be accepted,” he said, surprised at the friendliness of the North Korean locals.
The final track has little to do with North Korea, consisting of Pacman and Peso rapping about their upbringing in Washington, DC and Landover, Maryland, which they say are more dangerous than North Korea. The video has already generated media interest in the duo, with the two having just filmed a spot for cable music channel Fuse TV. But first, Peso says, “Got to get my GED.”
Watch: Pacman and Peso – Escape to North Korea
