Meet Nono Ryan, the Former Muay Thai Boxer Turned Rapper Who Found Buddhism

Photo By Athirdtime

Some people find music early in their life, but for others, it takes a journey. For Nono Ryan, a Regina-based rapper and spoken word artist, he found his love for poetry and beats as a Buddhist monk living in the Thai jungle. Born and raised in the Queen City, Nono has helped to pioneer Saskatchewan’s swiftly-growing hip-hop scene over the last few years as a member of the band DGS and a resident performer of the Trifecta Festival. But eight years ago, the rapper’s life wasn’t yet focused on music. His dream was to become a professional Muay Thai fighter and was leaving the prairies for Thailand to do it. “I was always an athletic person but what really drew me into [Muay Thai] was the wacky idea that it’d be a way for me to gain respect,” says Nono Ryan. “I know that sounds shitty, but as a naïve kid who’d never really been outside of Regina, I felt like I needed to prove myself… and had to be some sort of great fighter to be somebody.”

Nono gave up brawling for something completely opposite. He took vows of Thai monkhood and lived in a forest temple outside of Chiang Mai, Thailand studying Buddhism and pacifism. He admits those moments wearing orange robes and meditating all day seem like they could have been from another reality a few years later, living in Regina again, touring Canada and taking the stage at local shows. According to the rapper, however, it’s a past that’s still very connected to the present, and the lyrics, hooks, and beats he’s putting up today through songs like “Word” and “Ocean.” “I do feel my journey is what sets my music apart and it's the reason that I'm able to tap into my emotions and create a better understanding through poetry and music,” says Ryan. “Everybody has his or her own crazy story. I guess you could say mine was intense for a bit. But being a monk doesn’t necessarily make you enlightened. I’m still just a dude that’s trying to make sense of life.”

NOISEY: So why exactly did you decide to stop fighting Muay Thai professionally?
Nono Ryan: I guess you could say I took things to my extreme. I was training up north in Mae Hong Song and I remember one time the [trainers] were throwing ice water on me because I was about to pass out from pushing myself so hard in the heat. I loved that I got a high from it. It wasn’t healthy.

From there, it got to me fighting for a trainer in Koh Samui who, looking back, was just trying to juice money and didn’t give a shit about me. I was put into the ring with a guy that just wasn’t fight-ready and (he) got injured to the point where I just never want to hurt anybody that bad. It was kind of a brutal nightmare, to be honest. I realized I was just a young kid trying to impress myself and that was a huge reality check.

Is that why you turned to Buddhism?
I didn’t find Buddhism right after that, but that experience definitely helped lead me there. It was a few more years of me being back in Canada and feeling lost. I came back to Thailand when three of my trainers died—one in the ring, another in a motorcycle accident. But then I got dengue fever, was staying in a five dollar a night room in Chiang Mai sick as a dog and it was there at really my lowest of lows that it happened. Next to my hostel was a Mexican restaurant, and the owner—a Thai mother—saw me when I was sick, sat me down and gave me this really strong Thai medicine. It instantly made me feel awake and I asked her where she’d gotten it. It was from a temple. From there, we started talking about Buddhism and life every day. I owe her and her family much gratitude because they were a big part of my journey. Eventually, I decided to go to the temple and learn about meditation, which they helped me to do, and after assisting the monks for a few months I ordained and became a monk myself.

Photo courtesy of Nono Ryan. Ryan at Wat Umong in Chiang Mai prior to his ordination.

What’s being a monk really like?
I had to study 227 precepts, the chants, the blessings, which were in Pali and Sanskrit, and I stayed at the temple with no electricity. We would wake up every day in the middle of the jungle in darkness, meditate and walk six kilometers into town barefoot to a nearby village where we would receive alms (food offerings for monks) from farmers and villagers. That’s when I really realized how much I love music. When I was there, the precepts I was working to follow included no music, no singing, no dancing and I realized music is a huge part of my life. So I would sit down and write poetry for hours, which was for me straight from my soul. I wasn’t writing to perform, just to kind of make sense of my situation. After leaving the temple, that love of writing evolved into doing spoken word. I always loved hip-hop and had friends that were rapping, so rapping turned into a natural link.

Do you believe all these experiences led you to music?
I believe everything happens for a reason. I was looking for something real and found it. I found myself there in many ways. It’s difficult to explain. It was super scary but it was peaceful. I’m still figuring life out, and writing rhythms seems to help. I rap about the metaphysical and spiritual journeys, but while some of my experiences may not be totally relatable for everybody, what I think is relatable is this idea of finding your way. I wrote a song called “Ocean” that’s about being completely helpless and trying to understand what it is to be lost. I think the journey I’m on now is trying to dig deeper and find deeper meaning in everything—in music, in relationships, in life.

Barbara Woolsey is a writer living in Berlin, born and raised in Regina. Follow her on Twitter.