Rebellions: Making History as Ed Sheeran’s Opening Act in Thimphu
When Ed Sheeran made his groundbreaking debut on January 24, 2025 in Bhutan, the night began with an equally historic performance by Rebellions, the Bhutanese hip-hop collective redefining the music scene in the kingdom.The Changlimithang Stadium came alive as Rebellions took the stage, delivering a high-energy set that fused hard-hitting beats with lyrics reflecting Bhutan’s modern youth culture. Tracks like “Dzongkha Flow” and “Mountain Vibes” ignited the crowd, proving that hip-hop has a home in the Himalayas.Their performance wasn’t just an opening act—it was a declaration. Rebellions showed the world that Bhutanese music is evolving, vibrant, and ready for the global stage. Sharing the spotlight with Ed Sheeran, they didn’t just open the show—they set the tone for an unforgettable night.JD Rebellions
This morning. The frost clung to the hillside. Mist hung in the air, streaked by the sun, casting rays around skeletal branches. A stillness, the kind of quiet that exemplifies mountain mornings, where time drips as slow as melting ice. The frozen cascade gleamed, an accidental sculpture gifted by nature.
The sky’s on fire over Thimphu, spilling molten dreams across the valley—orange, pink, bleeding into purple. The house on the hill, perched like a hermit, watching it all go down, soaking in the last flicker of light before the world slides into the quiet hum of night.
You can feel the mountains breathe here, like they’ve seen it all and still stand tall, patient, eternal. The kind of sunset that pulls you out of yourself, the whole universe moving without a care, and you’re just there, a part of it.
Today I encountered a peculiar manifestation on the walls of Thimphu – a dragon, yes, but not the ordinary sort that haunts our collective unconscious. This one, crafted by the hand of Pema Gyeltshen, writhes in a terrible sort of beauty, its golden scales reflecting a light that seems to emanate from nowhere and everywhere at once.
The dragon clutches a blue orb. Perhaps we are not so different, this dragon and I, both trapped in our respective dimensions. Both of us reaching for something just beyond our grasp.
Mad swirling demon-dancer exploding across the midnight canvas like some cosmic jazz solo. The mask blazing gold against that crazy blue spiral – that’s pure Bhutanese dharma-rhythm there. The monks they call this cham-dance, this holy-wild spinning meditation that burns through illusion like benzedrine through midnight blues.
Check those robes – turquoise and orange and yellow all floating and flying while the dancer kicks at heaven! Those boots adorned with sacred scripts like some holy beatnik’s notebook scrawls. This isn’t your square temple art – Pema Gyeltshen’s caught the pure energy of it, the sacred-profane moment when the human vanishes into divine ecstasy.
In Bhutan they know what we’re all searching for on the road – that moment when the mask becomes the face becomes the universe becomes everything and nothing all at once. Pure enlightenment. And this painting catches it all in one eternal NOW – the spin, the swirl, the cosmic laugh.
Touching the void with a paintbrush, real gone art straight from the mystic East shooting straight to the Western soul.
On Consumption and Conscience: Observations from the Highest Kingdom
The sweatshirts sit there still, limp and forgotten on a cement slab, like a flag surrendered to the mountain wind. Two weeks now they have remained, untouched, unclaimed, though surely there are those who feel the bite of Bhutan’s winter air. I find myself returning to them almost daily, as if drawn by some unseen force, contemplating this fabric of contradiction that has revealed itself in the Kingdom of the Thunder Dragon.
How different it was in Brussels, where I witnessed the swift disappearance of abandoned clothing! There, against the backdrop of Art Nouveau facades and EU prosperity, a discarded hoodie would vanish within hours, claimed by hands both needy and opportunistic. In Berlin too, where history’s weight still presses upon every cobblestone, the informal exchange of cast-off clothing operated with German efficiency – no item lingered long enough to gather morning dew.
But here, in Bhutan, where GDP gives way to Gross National Happiness, where prayer flags send their sacred messages to the wind, my Western assumptions about need and want have been turned upon their head. The sweatshirts remain, a peculiar testament to something I am only beginning to understand.
Perhaps it is pride that stays the hand – not the false pride of appearance, but the deeper pride of sufficiency, of knowing one’s place in the great wheel of existence. Or perhaps it speaks to the Buddhist teaching of non-attachment, a lesson made manifest in the refusal to grasp at what is freely offered.
This silent rebuke to the Western paradigm of consumption and charity. The locals pass by. Their indifference speaks volumes about a culture that measures wealth not in possessions but in peace of mind, not in accumulation but in contentment.
And so the sweatshirts linger, day after day, a persistent question mark in the thin mountain air. It has become my teacher, this unwanted offering, showing me that perhaps it is we in the West who are poor – poor in our understanding of enough, poor in our addiction to more, poor in our assumption that what works in Brussels must work in Bhutan.
I am reminded that some gifts, however well-intentioned, remain better ungiven, some lessons better learned in the patient observation of what remains unclaimed.
I went on a quest to find this elusive mural by DALeast high up in the hills of a nunnery, today.
This mural in Thimphu, Bhutan, painted by the Chinese-born street artist DALeast, features a striking, dynamic depiction of a horse rendered in his signature style. The flowing lines create an illusion of movement, energy, and intensity, resembling a sculpture of light and wire. The choice of a horse—a powerful and symbolic figure—reflects themes of freedom, strength, and spirituality, often tied to Bhutan’s cultural and Buddhist ethos.
In his Instagram post, DALeast refers to the legendary figure Tangtong Gyalpo, a Bhutanese and Tibetan historical figure renowned as a mahasiddha (an accomplished tantric practitioner). Tangtong Gyalpo was a polymath—a spiritual master, architect, physician, and artist—credited with innovations such as the construction of suspension bridges in the Himalayas and the promotion of ironwork.
DALeast’s mural pays homage to Tangtong Gyalpo’s legacy by symbolizing the energy and creativity that defined the mahasiddha’s life. The post conveys DALeast’s inspiration and admiration for Tangtong Gyalpo’s impact on Bhutanese and Himalayan culture. The collaboration at the residence of a modern Bhutanese spiritual figure, Tang Tong Tulku, further links this artwork to both the historical and contemporary continuity of spiritual and artistic traditions in Bhutan. 🇧🇹
Here, I am with Ngawang, a nun who has lived at the Zilukha Nunnery, where this mural is, for the past 8 years.
Fading yellow walls blazing in the Himalayan sun, just blazing like some ancient scroll of wisdom. Tigers and dragons dancing wild and free up there near the eaves, painted by some holy monk-artist who must’ve seen these spirits in his deepest meditations, must’ve caught their essence with his brush while prayer flags snapped in the mountain wind.
Windows like dark eyes staring out at the street, wooden frames aged by a thousand monsoons, and that incredible frieze of Buddhist symbols marching across the middle like some cosmic parade – oranges and golds telling stories, older than time maybe. Traditional Bhutanese architecture but it’s really a poem in yellow stucco and wood, every carved detail singing its own sutra. This is the real thing, the genuine article – not some tourist trap but a living, breathing piece of the Thunder Dragon Kingdom. Those decorative bands with their endless knots and lotus flowers, they’re like mantras frozen in paint and plaster, and the whole building’s got this rhythm, this beat that goes way back to when the first lamas came over the mountains bringing their sacred dharma.
The shadows falling across that facade tell their own story as the sun moves west toward India, and somewhere inside those dark windows, life goes on – prayer wheels turning, butter lamps flickering, and the eternal Om Mani Padme Hum echoing off these ancient walls that have seen it all, man, seen it all and still standing here telling their tale to anyone who’ll stop and really look at what’s being laid down in this corner of Thimphu where past and present dance their eternal dance.
