Suboi

Vietnam and hip hop aren't two things you often hear uttered in the same sentence but if you do, you'd probably hear the name Suboi somewhere in there. In Vietnam, where hip hop is quickly rising to the top of youth culture, Suboi was the first female rapper to make it big mainstream and is now one of the most popular hip hop artists in Vietnam. Her musical style can be described as versatile - rapping over a wide range of beats from old school hip hop to dubstep, with a flow that can be described as chill as Snoop Dogg to ferocious like Eminem.

Trang Anh Hang Lam, better known as Suboi, is a 23-year-old rapper and songwriter born and raised in the Vietnamese metropolis of Saigon/Ho Chi Minh City. Growing up, she was teased as somewhat of a tomboy in elementary school, and earned her nickname "Suboi", a combination of her nickname at home, "Su" with the name "boi". During her teenage years, she became a fan of hip hop music, listening to rappers such as Eminem, Snoop Dogg, Will Smith, and Mos Def. Suboi's early love for hip hop actually helped her with her skillful flow and command of English. However, she often jokes that because rappers like Eminem were her English teachers, her English is quite rude and full of curse words. In addition to hip hop's influence on her English, it became her inspiration and path into music. Her admiration for hip hop and rap led her to compose and perform as a rapper in a nu-metal band at 15.

Suboi then quickly became a well-recognized and respected rapper from the Vietnamese underground scene. At the age of 17, her talent was noticed even more so as she accompanied Rapsoul, a fellow comrade to Music Faces’ recording studio to record his track. However, it was her vocals that were noticed by the producer which then led an invitation for her to join the record label. At the age of 20, she debuted her album WALK in August 2010 and it was well-received by her loyal fan base while gaining new ones on the way.

Suboi popularity has soared over the past few years, she started her Facebook account in August 2009 with only 4,000 fans but as of September 2013, she has well over 220,000 fans, over 5,000,000 viewers collectively on YouTube and 20,000,000 hits on Vietnam's biggest music site, Zing. Based on Facebook statistics, her audiences are aged 14-28 with an even split of male and female from the local underground hip hop community to a growing international fan base. In Vietnam and around Asia, she has become the face and represented big brands such as Adidas, Samsung, Coca-Cola, Kotex, among many others. She even recently had a yogurt flavor named after her. In a country where artists earn most of their money through branding and and don't necessarily get compensated for their music, she remains humble and focused on her music.

Today, Suboi is influenced by the introspective lyrics of artists such as Kendrick Lamar and Erykah Badu while inspired by the flash and flow of rappers like Azealia Banks. However, growing up in a communist country like Vietnam where censorship is the norm, her path as an artist is unique, especially when her paintbrush of choice are words. In the past few years, she has transformed from a shy tomboy who took Vietnam by storm into a young woman ready to show the world what Vietnamese hip hop is all about.