Thai rapper Jarvis balances on a comically stationary motorcycle as it streaks like a comet across green-screen galaxies. He’s dressed in a puffy vest and baggy pants, both colored in safety orange with yellow accents in reference to the ubiquitous motosai taxis seen on street corners across Bangkok. He’s rapping over a Jersey club beat mixed with Thai-style elements like ching percussion and phin line electric guitar melodies. This is the video for “เอิงเอย (Aoeng Aoey),” the first single off his upcoming EP, THAIMOONG, which revolves around Thai styles mixed with rap and dance music like club, house, and even 3cha.

Jarvis got his start as a rapper during the pandemic. He was already a stylist for other rappers but wasn’t able to go to any music video shoots, so he decided to try out rapping for himself. Since he was roommates with well-known producer Bossa On The Beat, he was able to test the waters pretty easily. It took him over six months to release his first song, constantly going back to the drawing board to try and make sure it worked before finally dropping it.

But it was his second song, “น้ำแดงน้ำส้ม (NAM DANG NAM SOM),” that went viral and solidified his name. “Bossa saw me watching all this comedy on my phone and suggested I make a song with a meme. If it wasn’t for him, I might have been trying to make gangster rap,” Jarvis laughs, making gun pop noises and hand motions. The track was popular all over Asia and is still his top song on Spotify, thanks to the rounds it’s currently making in India. “It only took me one day to make that song!” As a testament to how far the song has reached, he told a story about how this Australian girl showed up at one of his shows and stood there alone in the front row without moving until finally it dropped, and then she took out her phone to film.

Since those early days (three long years ago), Jarvis doesn’t think he’s changed much: “I’m still the same. I’m just a normal guy, I wake up and brush my teeth like anyone else.” But he’s been thinking about how he can reach a wider beyond his country’s borders. “Since I can’t speak English, I decided to highlight my Thai background because it stands out globally.” He says a friend pointed out that people would prefer to just listen to Western rappers if he sounded the same as them. Then, when he saw OG Thai rapper Rejizz perform in Japan with a Thai-style track and get a huge reaction from the diverse crowd, he decided it was definitely a move to try out. And it seems to work with Thai crowds too, at least in certain ways, like when he does familiar call-and-response songs from Thai assemblies while performing at shows.

“เอิงเอย (Aoeng Aoey)” boils down the idea of capturing Thai life in a way that relates to the global conversation. He’s got a high-fashion version of the win motosai outfit, courtesy of designer Snack, which represents the Thai country code on the back and his hometown of Popadeng. For the photoshoot promoting the track, he commissioned some drivers to hang out with him under a bridge, sipping matching orange soda from a bag and highlighting the similarities of Western street style and theirs; namely the balaclava masks. And he fuses the bouncy, Jersey triplets that are taking over globally with the sounds common outside his window.

Will Thai-style club pop work with international and local crowds? “I don’t know, I just wanted to try it,” Jarvis shrugs with a smile. Either way, he’s always got another comedy track in his back pocket, like the recent “Moo Deng,” a one-off he dropped just for fun. “We were all in the studio and GUYGEEGEE was watching the memes on his phone, so we decided let’s do that.” They made the baby hippo song in half a day and dropped it immediately after. It’s already got people dancing to it on TikTok and Live and is closing in on “เอิงเอย (Aoeng Aoey),” which took months of thought and planning. “As long as people are listening, then it’s OK. I love to make it.”