Singer Hồng Nhung at the MV releasing ceremony. Photo HaiAPO

Pop singer Hồng Nhung, one of Việt Nam’s most influential and successful vocalists since the 1990s, has struck a powerful chord by producing the music video (MV) Tự Hỏi just a month after her breast-cancer surgery. She also collaborated with songwriter Craig Armstrong to record the soundtrack for the movie The Quiet American.

Việt Nam News reporter Nguyễn Bình chats with Hồng Nhung about her new MV.

Tự Hỏi was released a month after your breast cancer surgery. How were you able to accomplish that?

Tự Hỏi had been in progress for more than a year, involving very OCD people, starting with my two young musicians and music producers, Lope Pham and Trung Trần and myself. We seemed never to be completely happy with any version.

So it took time, and then, for the music video, we worked with the most sought-after director, another talented, up-to-date, very daring, creative director, Phương Vũ and his company Antiantiart.

They are all very busy, as naturally happens and our choreographer Tấn Lộc and his group, who are the best, were also extremely busy. When working with a large team of well-known, in-demand, and busy artists, finding a fixed schedule to be together is not easy.

Additionally, I had to take time for hospital visits and so, finally, after many cancellations, they found two days when everyone from both the north and south of Việt Nam could come together at Hà Nội Opera House.

I had to make the decision that this was it — the opportunity for us to be together. If I had tried to be safer for myself, it could have taken a year before we could really start the project. So that is the main reason why I took a bit of a risk by working on this quite challenging dancing music video, Tự Hỏi, only a month after my surgery.

Why did you do the MV? What does it mean to you?

This music video means a lot to me. It's probably the most impressive piece of art that I have been able to do, of course, with a lot of my great fellow artists.

It marks a new chapter of not only the art that I wanted to create, but also a new chapter of my personal life of my artistic journey.

Making the Tự Hỏi music video was an opportunity for all of us, the artists who come from very different generations and different art forms, to work together to express the same message, but in our own way.

The message is about the struggle of each person, each artist, to live in this life — to be truthful, honest, passionate and ready to face all challenges to create beauty in the way each of us believes in. It also shows the togetherness of many different individuals in a very beautiful harmony.

It demonstrates how we can each be individual artists, very different from one another, yet still work together and be like elements that build a beautiful art installation.

We open our hearts — as you can see from the backstage footage, not only all the beauty on stage, but also all the mess, sweat, and difficulties.

It is life itself, and we live for it, we earn it, and by creating this art, by living an artist’s life — which is never as easy as it appears on stage — we earn our happiness. That is why we have all come together to make this music video of life.

During the making of the music video, you performed nine metres above the ground, which accidentally caused damage to your incision. Why did you take that risk?

I must say I’m very impressed and I have great respect for the director Phương Vũ, who is only 30 years old and so amazingly talented.

He himself, with the way he builds the story, creates something very complicated, combining the classic, street art, and different dimensions. It is complex, yet he puts everything together in a way that captures your attention like nothing else has before.

I feel so lucky, as if it is fate, to have had the chance to work with the director Phương Vũ. When he asked me about the scene where they were going to lift me up to create a kind of Matrix effect, he explained the script and asked if I wanted to do it or not.

If I didn’t want to, he would cut it out with full respect and understanding. I am very grateful for that. However, I thought, I don’t want to break his script because everything makes sense. Also, because I am a yogi in a way — I have been practising yoga for a long time and have done a little dancing with arabesque.

So I felt like I could do it. I didn’t ask my doctor, Rafi God — who later did point his finger at me — but we had so much fun doing this scene. I felt tremendous support from all the young musicians, dancers, artists, and the huge group of young people working on the scene.

I felt a little bit like a heroine. I absolutely had so much fun doing that scene, even though I did take a little painkiller.

What inspired you to sing Tự Hỏi which composed by a young composer?

I always wish to work with different people, different artists and especially at this stage, with much younger artists, because I do learn from them. They give me new inspiration and because of them, I have discovered other abilities that I could develop, which is amazing.

When I work with them, they keep giving me gifts every day. That is how I feel working with Lope Pham. I have known him since he was a little boy because his mother and I have been close friends for four years. I have always seen an artist in him.

He has great taste all the way — for fashion, movies, and art. So suddenly, he decided to pursue music. He was already successful with other rappers and singers. By chance, he gave me this song. It’s a love song.

I found it very, very beautiful. It took me five days to write the lyrics together with Trung Trần. He plays a very unique part in the blend. After my recording, we made it a piece by the three of us, where I joked with them that each of them is 24 and 25 years old and I am still older. But it shows how artists can come together, work together, understand each other, and build something together, no matter whether we are young or not.

Tự Hỏi was written by the young, talented artist Lộc Phạm and is considered the biggest project of your 40-year career. Critics have described it as very sophisticated. What are your thoughts?

The song that Lope Pham wrote is about a breakup of a very young kind of love, if not puppy love.

Together with Trung Trần, we met and created it. We built it, time and again, with thought and feeling, into something more mature, something very human, something honest and, as you mentioned, probably also sophisticated. Thank you very much for that compliment.

What we aimed to do was to express the feelings of a human being in two words: love towards life and love towards difficulties. Mostly, it is about how you pick yourself up from challenges, smile again, renew yourself and somehow build a new chapter.

So you should never—how do I say it?—approach it with a sad mentality before a sad song. It is absolutely very sad.

But within this sadness, it is more like life in the bigger picture, where sadness and challenges exist, but it is how we rise above them. — VNS