Red

I don't know where to start. I'm from Hà Nội. I'm multidisciplined. I don't usually like to use the word "artist," but whatever. I dance, I play music, I do abstract performance mostly. Now I do more DJing, playing sounds. But my main thing is still dancing. I just don't perform dancing that much.

I started with popping, then breaking, and then just whatever I want. I don't like to box myself into one thing. I have friends in different disciplines and I do a bit of everything.

I was playing with Mắm, a Vietnamese band based in Hà Nội. I started playing music with them in 2022, when I came back to Vietnam. They play Vietnamese hip hop, which is not that common here, a band playing hip hop, it's usually rock or indie. We make more conscious songs. Not the "I love you so much" breaking up stuff. We don't make songs about that. We're more about human love, nature, thoughtful concepts.

These days I'm mostly DJing, playing songs. I don't produce. The only music I make is with the band, and I don't make electronic music myself. But I play weird music. I like to play weird music out of the club. When I play for a club, then fine, techno, breakbeat, house, whatever people are playing. But no pop. I don't touch pop music ever. No pop.

The performance side goes back to Frances, my director in Hà Nội. We did a lot together. We ended up working at a theatre in Đà Nẵng called House of Legends. He was the director and I came in as the choreographer. That theatre is closed now, they're trying to sell it. But we had this one show we toured with the Rec Tour called Shadow Boy. It's very dark. We play with shadow, so it has to be completely dark. We actually did it here in Chăm Chỉ (Hoa Lá) a year or two ago. That was one of my best pieces. We don't do that much of it now, so I'm just playing music and DJing.

In Hội An there's good music, and in Đà Nẵng there's good music. But commercial music is still the biggest thing. In Đà Nẵng you have the packed clubs, and sometimes they play really good stuff, but usually it's hip hop or the pop songs, the very popular ones, the TikTok ones where everybody already knows the track. I tend to play songs you have never heard. You don't even know the songs exists. For me that's good. Some people want something to sing along to. I don't like to play things like that.

In Hội An, I feel like the only place you can hear music that isn't commercial is Saranai. If you go to the old town, it's the same kinda stuff, some of the DJs are really good even if the music isn't my thing. It's cool sometimes to go and change the vibe. Some of these places spend a lot on the sound system, and there are newer club rooms opening where you can play straight up electronics on a really good rig.

You keep digging. Dig online, all the time. And I also have a business in Hà Nội, I sell vinyl records. It's a small shop. Every time we bring in a box of records I go through everything, and if there's something I love, I chase it down and dig further from there.

I've lived in Đà Nẵng for about eight months now, and I get to Hội An once or twice. There are a lot of good musicians. Same with DJ but the ones getting the most gigs are playing cover music, the things people already know. People here don't really want to be exposed to weird stuff, to something unfamiliar. They want the familiar thing.

And it's not just music. Painting, sculpture, dance, wood carving, there are a lot of serious artists around here. Crazy good painters, carvers, photographers. But they don't promote themselves much and show off their work. They just stay home and work on their stuff, or sell it quietly somewhere. There isn't much space for people to show what they make.

Sometimes I play a few bars around, and I can go a little weird, but then I have to come back to something easier for the room. Some places really get on me: can you play something people can sing to? So I bring it back down.

We had it before, honestly. This place, Hoa Lá, used to have really good music, really good concerts. Bands everywhere, bands from outside Vietnam, from Sài Gòn, Hà Nội, from Đà Nẵng, rappers, musicians, DJs, very good ones. What brings them together is getting harder now, because venues can't stay open late the way they used to. A lot of them have had to close early, and that makes it hard for the venue and hard for the performers.

So people need more exposure, and more than that, they need better ways to be found. A lot of the audience here is travelling. They come through for five days, a week, and it's hard for them to find anything online. They will not reach a random Instagram post. The thing that works is a poster in the restaurant, on the wall, even in the toilet at the bar. The sad part is a lot of places won't accept it. They don't want it on their wall. That's strange to me, because in Hà Nội people would love it, they post whatever, it's just more exposure and nobody minds. Down here you have to do the marketing differently so people actually know what's on.

And the weather and the view do something too. People don't want to go hardcore here. I play very hard music, that's my favourite, but I get a lot of afternoon gigs where people are at a cafe, having dinner, and they just want some easy music, some jazzy house. I enjoy that too, but it's a different thing.

This is a hard question, because I don't even remember how I started. But: play the music you like. If you like commercial music, go for it. You should play what you enjoy, then play what other people enjoy.

The trick is that you are the first audience. The DJ hears the note, hears the track, before anyone else in the room. You play for the people, yes, but you are always the first one listening. If it satisfies you, that energy transfers to the audience. If you only play for yourself and ignore the room, that doesn't work either. I can't play something too heavy for a crowd that isn't there for it. But everything I played last Saturday, every track, was a track I love.

So train your basic mixing, and gather all the music you love, any genre. I don't judge genre. Even pop can be very good music, sometimes it's beautiful, I like to hear it. I just don't like to play it. Whatever you truly love, play that. Don't play what everybody else is already playing. If someone has been DJing ten years before you and you play the same songs, people go, I've seen this before. So play what you love.

The first of August is SONIC. And I have a little solo dance performance at the Tân Thành Block Fest. August 8 to 9.

I'm also thinking about opening a dance space in Đà Nẵng. People keep telling me to. The studios I've found so far are all on the city side, across the river, and I want to do something on the beach side. So it will take time, but maybe I find the right studio, or set up my own, so people have more to do in Đà Nẵng and Hội An.

Yeah, I'm going to keep doing them. Monday and Tuesday, 1pm to 2:30pm, is street dance. It's not really strict training, it's more about exposing people to it, some basics, some choreography, so people get a feel for what street dance actually is. Friday is the kids class, mostly breaking. And there's a movement class on Sunday, 3:30pm to 5pm here at Hoa Lá.

The best thing, for me, is that I get to play music. I don't care if there is a lot of audience or exposure, it satisfies me to have a good sound system and enjoy the music I love to play.