Sunny Friday morning in Saigon and the Propeller Group represented by Tuan is ready to give a lecture to the early birds. Quite an exchange it was. A cultural exchange. The re-branding of Vietnam. Underground culture. Different from the underground in the past, the ones that everybody knows when you hear the word Vietnam. The tunnels, the fight, the struggle. The existing brand.
This is a very different underground. An underground that had seen graffiti but did not know what it was called until a backpacker visiting Hanoi in 2005 gave them the much needed information. A single word: Graffiti. Once the word was known, Google searches took place and more information was transferred.
Graffiti has blossomed since then. It is a reaction to advertising. Youth promoting their own voice. Is Vietnam becoming more Westernised? Do they only copy blindly? To that, we got a brief history about hip hop in New York. People often believe hip hop originated in New York, but when you ask the pioneers from the past, they would say that they got inspired by Asian moves. Balinese dance. Kung Fu. They saw something and adopted it. Fast forward and the best hip hop teams today originates in Asia.
The flow of exchange is made easier with the Internet. YouTube and Vimeo. Collaboration across the borders. The hip hop remix project.
Within in an hour we had jumped around subjects, seen videos and listened to music collaborations and had small debates. A member of the audience told us about a very special musical art form that is more or less unique to Vietnam. The blind man walking down alleys with blown out speakers, volume on max and playing 1920 raw blues tunes.
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Enjoy the images:
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| Tuan from Propeller Group |
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