Rachel Tayza
Rachel Tayza ရေချယ်တေဇ | |
|---|---|
 Tayza in 2019 | |
| Background information | |
| Birth name | Htoo Htwe Tayza |
| Born | September 14, 1996 Yangon, Myanmar |
| Genres | Indie pop |
| Occupation(s) | Singer, Songwriter |
| Instruments |
|
| Years active | 2017–present |
Rachel Tayza (Burmese: ရေချယ်တေဇ; born Htoo Htwe Tayza on 14 September 1996[1]), also known as RACHEL, is a Burmese pop singer, songwriter, and fashion designer.[2] She rose to fame with her solo album, Kabar. She is the daughter of Burmese business tycoon Tay Za.[3] Since January 2023, she has faced sanctions from the US government for providing financial support to the military regime in Myanmar.
Early life
[edit]Rachel was born on 14 September 1996[1] to Tay Za and Thida Zaw, the youngest of three children.[4][5] Her father, Tay Za, is a business tycoon and chairman of Htoo Group of Companies.
Career
[edit]Rachel started learning and playing the guitar at the age of 13. She discovered her real passion and has devoted her life to becoming a musician. She began her music career by making cover songs and posting them on YouTube. As a notable achievement, she made the background music album for the popular film Nya.[2] Since then, she has become popular, having performed in various major music concerts and even live concerts.[6][7]
In 2018, she started endeavoring to be able to produce and distribute her first solo album. She released her debut solo album, Kabar, on September 21, 2019, which was officially distributed to all parts of Myanmar. The album was a commercial success, reaching the top of the album charts.[8] On 24 August 2019, she performed in Alive in Yangon's second music concert, called The Blue Night, together with Mary and Gabriel Phway.[9][10] In December 2019, she released a single song and music video with featured artist X-Boxin called "Thu" on her Facebook page, which earned 1 million views within 24 hours and was the longest-leading No. 3 song in the Myanmar Top Chart on Joox.[11]
After graduating from Polimoda in 2024, she is currently working as a fashion designer in Italy.[12]
Sanctions
[edit]On 31 January 2023, on the eve of the 2nd anniversary of the 2021 Myanmar coup d'état, the US government sanctioned Rachel for providing financial support to Myanmar's military regime due to her association with the Htoo Group of Companies.[13] She is a director and shareholder of numerous subsidiaries and associated companies under the Htoo Group of Companies umbrella.[13] She owned Nova Lifestyle Holdings, and its registration is currently suspended.[14]
On 8 March 2024, the activist monitoring group Justice for Myanmar called for the Italian government to investigate Rachel Tayza. They demanded that her assets be seized and that she be expelled from the country.[15] JFM reports that she is a director of at least seven private companies, including Htoo Group's businesses with direct links to the Burmese military that were established after the 2021 coup d'état. Additionally, according to JFM reports, Rachel Taze is also a director of the now-defunct Myanmar Avia Export Company Limited, which brokered Russian aircraft and spare parts.[16]
Discography
[edit]Albums
[edit]- Myit (for Nya film) (2018)
- Kabar (2019)
Singles
[edit] |
- Ser Myat Nar (2017)
- Ani Youn Alwan (2017)
- Thu (2019)
References
[edit]- ^ a b "Burma-related Designations". U.S. Department of the Treasury. Retrieved 2023-02-02.
- ^ a b Myat, T. Nang Seng (17 September 2019). "RACHEL's first [sic] debut "Kabar" is on its way". Myanmore Magazine.
- ^ KYAW LIN HTOON (20 October 2017). "The return of Tay Za". Frontier. Retrieved 19 July 2020.
- ^ "Burma-related Designations; Counter Terrorism Designation Removal". U.S. Department of the Treasury. Retrieved 2022-08-04.
- ^ "Tycoon Te Za: Well-Connected and Well-Heeled". The Irrawaddy. Retrieved 2022-08-04.
- ^ "ရေချယ်တေဇရဲ့ အမျောလေးတွေ လာမယ်". Kamayut Media TV (in Burmese). 13 August 2019.
- ^ "အဆိုတော် ရေချယ်တေဇ ရဲ့ International Youth Day အထိမ်းအမှတ် ဖျော်ဖြေပွဲ". Myanmar Celebrity News (in Burmese). 13 August 2018.
- ^ Thet, Khin Swe (1 September 2017). "ရေချယ်တေဇနှင့်တွေ့ဆုံခြင်း". 7Day News (in Burmese). Archived from the original on 27 March 2020. Retrieved 27 March 2020.
- ^ "သာယာငြိမ့်ညောင်းတဲ့ တေးသံသာများနဲ့ ပရိသတ်တွေကိုစိတ်ကြည်နူးပျော်ရွှင်စေအောင် ဖျော်ဖြေနိုင်ခဲ့သည့် The Blue Night Concert". Eleven Media Group. 26 August 2019.
- ^ "သီချင်းတိုက် လေ့ကျင့်နေတဲ့ Rachel Tayza". Myanmar Celebrity News (in Burmese). 21 August 2019.
- ^ Wyne, Bruce (6 December 2019). "ရေချယ်တေဇ နဲ့ ဖန်တီးထားတဲ့ သီချင်းသစ်လေး ထွက်လာတော့မယ်ဆိုတဲ့ X Box". Yangon News (in Burmese). Archived from the original on 6 December 2019. Retrieved 27 March 2020.
- ^ "Emerging Designer Showcase". Afrofashion Association. 19 September 2023.
- ^ a b "Treasury Sanctions Officials and Military-Affiliated Cronies in Burma Two Years after Military Coup". U.S. Department of the Treasury. Retrieved 2023-02-02.
- ^ "Htoo Group's business with the Myanmar military". Justice For Myanmar. Retrieved 2023-02-12.
- ^ Now, Myanmar (8 March 2024). "Activists report sanctioned Myanmar tycoon's daughter to Italian authorities". Myanmar Now.
- ^ "ဦးတေဇသမီးကို အရေးယူရန် အီတလီကို JFM တောင်းဆို". The Irrawaddy (in Burmese). 11 March 2024.