Straight outta Brickfields: how Malaysia gave the world Tamil rap

In a pink-lit car park outside a Colombo club, young Tamils cluster in loose groups. Laughter, the clink of glass bottles and the low throb of bass from the decks inside spill out into the warm night air.
Sri Lanka’s capital is home to hundreds of thousands of Tamils. But a Tamil nightclub is still rare – the sound of so many Tamil voices gathered together can still feel provocative in a country where memories of a long, bloody inter-ethnic civil war remain raw.
Inside the club, as British-Tamil…