Funk! Saigon or Hanoi?

Funk gives you energy, showers you with rhythm, with powerful and razor-sharp brass, with shrill organ, with mesmerizing keyboard skills, and with energetic vocals. Because it is a synthesis of soul, jazz & R&B, it will give you the feeling of "can't sit still". Therefore, funk has no room for boredom.

Album Dinh Manh Ninh: Make it Together - a quite trendy modern funk

Because not many people listen to funk in Vietnam, it has appeared sporadically, with only one or two songs every now and then. But I know that there is no musician who does not love this genre, because it stimulates the craft very much. It's just that few people have the time and passion to do it. Because pop is easier to make money.

Before, Quoc Trung had a rare and quite good funk song, which was Do Tinh . I knew him from this funk song. Then I didn't see him do it again. Next, the Anh Em band also had a few very good songs. After a long time, the generation gap was temporarily filled with the appearance of a rare factor in the program Bai Hat Viet Xua nao: Thanh Vuong. I remember that Vuong had a few consecutive funk songs that were quite good, specifically Pho Chieu , with the voice of To Minh Duc.

It can be said that Thanh Vuong is the most passionate and dedicated person to funk, as evidenced by Dinh Manh Ninh's recently released album: Make it Together - a quite trendy modern funk.

Not long ago, when I sat down and chatted with Huu Vuong at Ha Anh Tuan's show, I discovered that he also loves and wants to have a chance to do funk. Because he loves arranging for brass. I think this is also a potential factor, because I have heard a few songs that Vuong arranged for singers, very passionate and full of funk.

Brian Culbertson's CDs

In Hanoi, funk is like that! What about Saigon? I remember that during the period of Vietnamese Songs, Le Thanh Tam had a song that I really liked: Thèm nhà có hoa. Although the arrangement at that time was not necessarily inclined towards funk, but more soul, Thèm nhà có hoa would be a very good funk song if it was arranged purely funk. At that time, I waited for Tam to have more Thèm nhà có hoa . Because compared to Vietnamese music, this song is quite new, even in the current music scene. But then I didn't see Tam do more. In my opinion, Tam always has an underground stream waiting to awaken one day...

Maybe in Saigon there are also many people who love funk, but I have not seen the finished products on many digital platforms, but they are still just pop or ballade. Maybe passion is just passion, they often get swept away by the need for food and money? Just recently, while chatting, journalist Hai Ninh joked that making music is like Bruce Lee's song, divided into 3 parts: this part is for us, that part is for the listener, that part is for the singer. But it seems that in the current Vietnamese music market, musicians dedicate all "3 parts" to the listener, to the singer. "What about us, what path is for us?".

For a singer, value is measured by hits, by fans, by salary. But for a musician, those things sometimes mean nothing, sometimes even make us bow our heads and walk away, because the responsibility belongs to us and no one else. Then one day we suddenly feel sad and ask ourselves "what path is for me?", because throughout our life, we are not for ourselves, but only trying to please the audience, the singer's preferences.

Therefore, Bruce Lee's stick song must be re-scaled, so that when the peak of his career passes, we will no longer be saddened by the song "which way is for me", but Vietnamese music will also be balanced and "biodiversified", not just full of ballads!

Today, I will listen to Amazing by Dinh Manh Ninh while driving to Vung Tau to see the sea. Tomorrow, I will listen to Pho Chieu by Thanh Vuong again. It seems that I don't have many options when it comes to listening to Vietnamese funk, so I have to listen to Brian Culbertson to satisfy my addiction.

Source link: https://thanhnien.vn/funk-sai-gon-hay-ha-noi-185230812170158447.htm