Latest / The Vietnamese with Kenneth Nguyen / 496 - How Can Vietnamese Accents Affect Beatboxing? - Trung Bao

Transcript

496 - How Can Vietnamese Accents Affect Beatboxing? - Trung Bao · The Vietnamese with Kenneth Nguyen

0:00
[SPEAKER_03]: Welcome to the Vietnamese podcast.
0:02
[SPEAKER_03]: I have a special guest today, Jumbal.
0:04
[SPEAKER_03]: He's a multimedia artist.
0:07
[SPEAKER_03]: And I'm going to call you Jum because that's what we talked about earlier.
0:12
[SPEAKER_03]: And Jum, we met several months ago in Delat on a very special trip.
0:21
[SPEAKER_03]: And since then, I've, you know, I followed you and I have so many questions.
0:26
[SPEAKER_03]: And I thank you for
0:29
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
0:30
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.
0:30
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for having me.
0:33
[SPEAKER_03]: So Jun, you are from Vietnam, but you came onto the scene early in your years as a as a beatbox artist.
0:43
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think when I met you, I could not believe that.
0:46
[SPEAKER_03]: Like when I saw you in person, you seem just so you carry yourself as a, as a, not to say, beatbox artists are not educated or don't seem that way, but it seems, you know, a lot.
0:58
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, maybe an American beatbox artist or, you know, they just seem much more hip-hop, much more street.
1:03
[SPEAKER_03]: But you seem like, like,
1:05
[SPEAKER_03]: Maybe like a hernerautical engineer or rocket science is that, you know, the way you carry yourself.
1:11
[SPEAKER_03]: But tell me how you got into beatboxing.
1:16
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, I mean, I'm born, I was born in Hanoi, born and raised in Hanoi.
1:22
[SPEAKER_01]: So the street culture here, the hip hop community and also the beatboxing scene is where I started all of my career.
1:31
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think,
1:32
[SPEAKER_01]: to see that this kind of like different behavior you mentioned about like the how he pop people of carrying themselves, right?
1:41
[SPEAKER_01]: I have very much of that in me as well.
1:46
[SPEAKER_01]: To be fair, I mean like I had a very great opportunity early on to travel.
1:52
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean I study in the states, I study graphic design, communication design,
1:57
[SPEAKER_01]: and also from a very early years already like I had a chance to travel to different countries to perform and also participate.
2:08
[SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes even organizing beatbox competition, beatbox events around the world.
2:13
[SPEAKER_01]: So I mean like to see how hip-hop artists
2:17
[SPEAKER_01]: carry themselves around the world.
2:20
[SPEAKER_01]: You can see quite there's quite a diversity.
2:23
[SPEAKER_01]: So I mean like I have my own personalities, so I get to just pick and choose like which fit the best for me.
2:31
[SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, I mean yeah, the street energies.
2:34
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it's still here, especially if you speak with me in Vietnamese sometimes maybe we'll get a chance.
2:42
[SPEAKER_01]: You could feel it much.
2:44
[SPEAKER_03]: What do you mean by that by speaking to in Vietnamese?
2:46
[SPEAKER_03]: Is it because you're vernacular, your language comes up shortly?
2:52
[SPEAKER_01]: Is it my thing because I was born speaking Vietnamese, right?
2:58
[SPEAKER_01]: So like this early stage of my life, like how I pronounce, maybe, make sounds is very much like,
3:09
[SPEAKER_01]: Jeffrey, I think maybe when I started speaking English, it's already, you know, my brain started forming already.
3:15
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, I came to the state.
3:18
[SPEAKER_01]: So when I was 15, and I studied and worked there for for quite a while.
3:25
[SPEAKER_01]: So those are the years that, you know, you started.
3:28
[SPEAKER_01]: forming the identity of yourself and you know like trial and error.
3:33
[SPEAKER_01]: So much of those years were in English.
3:36
[SPEAKER_01]: So the way I speak is sometimes can be different, but also similar.
3:45
[SPEAKER_01]: This is quite abstract, but I can feel it very strongly.
3:49
[SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't mean...
3:53
[SPEAKER_01]: that what I say will be different.
3:55
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just like kind of like the tone and yeah.
3:58
[SPEAKER_03]: What depend on the who I speak to as well.
4:02
[SPEAKER_03]: I talk a lot about identity obviously on this podcast.
4:04
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think when you think about Americans in a general sense, you know,
4:13
[SPEAKER_03]: who grew up kind of where they grew up, right?
4:15
[SPEAKER_03]: You kind of knew what, you can kind of guess what economic situation people grew up in.
4:20
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, I'm making a real big general statement here, but if artists were just allowed to be who they are and they spoke and they spoke really truthfully the way they speak, you can kind of tell where people are from.
4:35
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think you can kind of tell people where people are from in Vietnam and that way too, right?
4:39
[SPEAKER_03]: All around the world.
4:41
[SPEAKER_03]: but I couldn't place where you come from.
4:43
[SPEAKER_02]: You know?
4:44
[SPEAKER_03]: And what I mean by that is based on hearing you and understanding that you're a beatboxer, but we spoke a lot in English.
4:53
[SPEAKER_03]: And so there is a certain understanding of who you are that I couldn't grasp at the time.
5:01
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I was living in Poland also for three years, so my background definitely makes between like all the places that I've been through.
5:13
[SPEAKER_01]: But I think it's more of maybe what you getting it is maybe more of the energy.
5:19
[SPEAKER_01]: I do feel that I embody like the experience,
5:26
[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, I let myself be mixed like that.
5:32
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, no, it's beautiful.
5:33
[SPEAKER_03]: I think it's absolutely, I mean, why do you want to be from one place, right?
5:38
[SPEAKER_03]: You want to be kind of like diverse, and you know, I think that's a real good, that's a strong point.
5:43
[SPEAKER_01]: And the most important thing to me is that wherever that I place myself in, I can make myself home and don't feel like out of place.
5:51
[SPEAKER_01]: So like, I spend over a decade overseas, and then come back to Vietnam and it's like, I can just fit in.
6:02
[SPEAKER_01]: And I speak like people around, I can communicate on the nuances, you know, and on the mannerism of people here, you know, in a...
6:12
[SPEAKER_01]: I haven't lived in other places in Vietnam, but like, where I would come from in Halloween.
6:17
[SPEAKER_01]: The specific mannerism that you can see people outside, but it's like, it's all cool, I guess.
6:23
[SPEAKER_01]: It's very nice to just kind of immerse yourself in wherever you are.
6:28
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think that that to me is like the something that I really focus on, but also let myself be just makes whatever, because I am not so afraid of the idea of like I can lose my identity, because it's always there, like it's like I can feel the strongest.
6:50
[SPEAKER_03]: your identity.
6:51
[SPEAKER_03]: You can feel your identity who you are the strongest.
6:54
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, definitely.
6:55
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, even especially the more I go to other countries, I can feel that how everyone in every country
7:05
[SPEAKER_01]: They think about identity and the question about identity much more now with, you know, exposure of social media that everyone can see everyone else in the world, you know, so I mean, we can see that people going to deal with the similar, they go through a similar thought process.
7:26
[SPEAKER_01]: So I feel very much Vietnamese and also get to enhance all of these experiences.
7:37
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
7:39
[SPEAKER_03]: When I think about singing or rapping and projecting our vocal style, you can know where, again, where the artist is coming from, kind of their vibe, right?
7:53
[SPEAKER_03]: But when you're playing drums,
7:55
[SPEAKER_03]: If you're playing guitar, it's sort of a different thing.
7:59
[SPEAKER_03]: piano guitar, maybe you can kind of feel a little bit more something, but when it's just straight beats, come out of your mouth, how do you put character into that form?
8:16
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, it's a percussive expression,
8:22
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm sure that you're, you know, you can close your eyes and, you know, the top beatbox artists of whatever, whenever you were really active in that world, you can close your eyes and you know, you know, that guys, that guy, that woman is that woman.
8:33
[SPEAKER_03]: You knew, where does that sort of that expression come from?
8:40
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
8:40
[SPEAKER_01]: So actually,
8:43
[SPEAKER_01]: From what I hear, my brother is a classical musician, he's a violinist, and in fact there's a lot of the music instruments, not even beatbox, classical music instrument, for example, a violin.
9:02
[SPEAKER_01]: The sound is similar, the notes people play as similar as the scores as similar, but the way people deliver, always carry how the character is like of how they speak the voice.
9:15
[SPEAKER_01]: So in a way, for since forever, the music instruments have always been the device for people
9:27
[SPEAKER_01]: So the delivery of the sound of the violin, for example, is very much similar to how people speak, and how people speak in different countries, and how people speak in different era.
9:42
[SPEAKER_01]: is that you will see that the style change in these different art form and different music gyros as well.
9:51
[SPEAKER_01]: So people of thing this is I mean it's very specific, it's literally come from the voice.
9:57
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's much more direct than the other instrument.
10:01
[SPEAKER_01]: So you can see, like, this is just utilizing the different parts of your body to make sounds.
10:10
[SPEAKER_01]: That's essentially what B-bossing is.
10:12
[SPEAKER_01]: This is a vocal techniques, right?
10:15
[SPEAKER_01]: And all of these really depends on where you're from and also the language you speak.
10:23
[SPEAKER_01]: Would define the characteristic of the type of sounds you would be pronouncing.
10:28
[SPEAKER_01]: So me specifically come from Vietnam, my style is very much similar to how I speak the North and Vietnamese accent.
10:38
[SPEAKER_01]: Wow.
10:39
[SPEAKER_03]: Your beatboxing is similar to how you explain it.
10:43
[SPEAKER_03]: Can you explain that?
10:44
[SPEAKER_01]: What that means?
10:46
[SPEAKER_01]: So, one thing that I notice, I mean, this is like, no one come into beatbox and then to study this for the beginning, right?
10:53
[SPEAKER_01]: Because we don't really have proper educations or any platform to share this knowledge, but this is from the realisation much later on that I had.
11:07
[SPEAKER_01]: So the Vietnamese language, North and accent specifically, has this way of pronouncing that the words, I mean, all the Vietnamese words are very short.
11:16
[SPEAKER_01]: They are only one syllable per word.
11:19
[SPEAKER_01]: So you can see is there's certain the transient kind of like the bounce of the word or like how short the word is cut at the end.
11:31
[SPEAKER_01]: So like the sustain of the word is very
11:34
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, like it's in a way it's very progressive, much more progressive than English.
11:40
[SPEAKER_01]: You see, English, the tone and also how I can speak a sentence and it just kind of flow with each other, that's a sentence.
11:46
[SPEAKER_01]: But like, since I was about to, I didn't like to, I didn't like to, I didn't like to, I didn't like to, I didn't like to, I didn't like to, I didn't like to, I didn't like to, I didn't like to, I didn't like to, I didn't like to, I didn't like to, I didn't like to, I didn't like to, I didn't like to, I didn't like to, I didn't like to, I didn't like to, I didn't like to, I didn't like to, I didn't like to, I didn't like to, I didn't like to, I didn't like to, I didn't like to, I didn't like to,
12:01
[SPEAKER_01]: you know, it's very on the grid.
12:04
[SPEAKER_01]: It's very much like the tone, especially the way I pronounce in like the Hanoi accent is very like, you know, on the, I would say the toldation is international's now to place and it's like relative pitch.
12:19
[SPEAKER_01]: And though the way of the relative pitch of this is all is like very, um, it's very progressive.
12:27
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's very much like how I beat boss as well.
12:31
[SPEAKER_01]: So I noticed that a lot of my sounds are sequins, like the how I speak, and they also kept short like that.
12:42
[SPEAKER_01]: So there's not a lot of, I noticed like the most comfortable sequins that I would do for example.
12:52
[SPEAKER_01]: They all like the,
12:56
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, and some of the special technique I have is also from the, you know, the tonation from from the Vietnamese language as well.
13:07
[SPEAKER_01]: So this is one of the technique.
13:13
[SPEAKER_01]: So this is, it's always like that.
13:18
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's very similar to how you pronounce
13:26
[SPEAKER_01]: But you only can do that if you cut that vocal very short.
13:30
[SPEAKER_01]: Just like how you do.
13:32
[SPEAKER_01]: Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah
13:51
[SPEAKER_01]: the tongue position is totally different from the English, for example.
13:58
[SPEAKER_01]: So like if you say D, the tongue would go like this and we push the R, D, D, like D,
14:19
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's very specific, but that's why you know like the Vietnamese accent you can hear a lot of like, you know, the sounds is shorter, it's more bouncing.
14:35
[SPEAKER_01]: And, um, I do notice this when I came to America, I was like, oh, wow, I like, I do have an accent.
14:41
[SPEAKER_01]: I was very good at English when I was in Vietnam, right?
14:44
[SPEAKER_01]: I went to America, I was like, wow, I do have an accent, but it's cool.
14:48
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to keep my accent.
14:51
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, but, uh, I mean, especially when I, I started, um, doing people of spadow, and, uh, I actually went to a
15:04
[SPEAKER_01]: to a second place.
15:06
[SPEAKER_01]: And that was the first time that people here deviated the style of beatboxing.
15:13
[SPEAKER_01]: And the sound that I was doing was the letter B.
15:18
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you do it very strongly, you'll get this down.
15:25
[SPEAKER_01]: This is like it's so big advantage if you already speak the language.
15:30
[SPEAKER_01]: So you can do beat like,
15:37
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, so like the first time I did it in people, it was like, wow, like my role in it, they never heard it and also they never heard it in that context.
15:50
[SPEAKER_01]: So a lot of times, you know, the Vietnamese accent, sometimes like the other beginning I came to America is like, oh, this might be not be a proper English right, but slowly when you see is in different contexts.
16:04
[SPEAKER_01]: then you start seeing like, ah, these are like, in a cuisine, this is like the spice man.
16:11
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, as much like, you know, the English language, when you already reached the point that people can understand you, you can articulate your points, your messages, then these accents.
16:25
[SPEAKER_01]: are like spices.
16:26
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like you, uh, unique.
16:29
[SPEAKER_01]: And last, what I learned the most from the beatbox community and everyone, not only in America, but also I went to Europe, I perform and people just love it.
16:41
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, and then also Vietnamese people in Vietnam, they hear me performing this in this context and they also realize.
16:49
[SPEAKER_01]: And these are the
16:56
[SPEAKER_01]: in your language.
16:59
[SPEAKER_01]: Everyone already have sound.
17:00
[SPEAKER_01]: They already make sounds, but sometimes they just take it for granted.
17:04
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think a big part of my deposting career is to see a lot of these behavior in different contexts
17:14
[SPEAKER_01]: and realize kind of like the value of these tiny small things and yeah and I get to pick and choose what is nice for my hair.
17:25
[SPEAKER_03]: The craziest thing is I just did this clip on Instagram about how some people are very embarrassed about the Vietnamese accent.
17:36
[SPEAKER_03]: when they speak English, but then like when it's French Italian, a British accent speaking English, then they love it, you know, people love it.
17:44
[SPEAKER_03]: But Vietnamese people in America, Vietnamese Americans, we hear Vietnamese accents.
17:48
[SPEAKER_03]: That is the English that spoke in and being affected by Vietnamese language.
17:54
[SPEAKER_03]: We get very embarrassed by it, shamed of it.
18:00
[SPEAKER_03]: And that has like this historical, you know, different historical layers.
18:03
[SPEAKER_03]: But hearing you talk about,
18:06
[SPEAKER_03]: the spice and how we're not going to lose this we're going to keep this and make it a powerful representation of a percussive accent coming from the Vietnamese language is such a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful angle that you know that I don't think about ever.
18:27
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it's the most important thing for me is context.
18:32
[SPEAKER_01]: I think when you see a lot of these aspects of the culture and you see it in the right context, then people can realize.
18:41
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it's not only for Vietnamese people, but for everyone, right?
18:44
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, like for you, what you mentioned, how there could be embarrassment coming from this.
18:50
[SPEAKER_01]: is that people are touching that to a certain errantic, for example, like movies or maybe historical trauma.
19:02
[SPEAKER_01]: So these things can happen.
19:05
[SPEAKER_01]: But I think moving forward, if we can re-contextualize this, because I think cultures, any culture is beautiful, and it's worth
19:19
[SPEAKER_01]: sharing.
19:20
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think deep down everyone would love to enjoy and see differences for sure.
19:27
[SPEAKER_03]: I talked to the jazz saxophone player, uh, entrant,
19:35
[SPEAKER_03]: a few months ago in New York, and her father is a famous saxophone player in Vietnam as well, I believe.
19:44
[SPEAKER_03]: And you know, I had this conversation with her, we are on the sidewalk side of a jazz club.
19:50
[SPEAKER_03]: And I asked her, I said, when you listen and close your eyes to a jazz
20:03
[SPEAKER_03]: think because I'm not a jazz aficionado, I don't know jazz like that, but I asked her because I often time thinks that when we think about music and Vietnam in the early years after the war, sometimes the music that we heard from Paris by night were copies of copies of copies, and they never felt to me
20:28
[SPEAKER_03]: anything like like eat it the piaf right eat it piaf is the original love vial rose song but sometimes when you listen to it and it's two or three versions down you just know it's like a copy of the copy the French is not right the the whole musicality is just kind of off so in the same way I asked and trend when you hear jazz saxophone is played or any jazz musician can you typically guess if they're black people playing and she
20:57
[SPEAKER_03]: She said, that was a great question.
20:59
[SPEAKER_03]: She said, I think it's, yeah, you could hear it.
21:03
[SPEAKER_03]: And then today, hearing you explain this sort of the context of the sounds that you make, I want to ask you the same question.
21:12
[SPEAKER_03]: When you close your eyes and hear an American beatbox artist in from America, can you tell if this style or if the rhythm or of the percussive note
21:28
[SPEAKER_03]: or wherever country, Poland, Vietnam, can you kind of place it in a general category?
21:36
[SPEAKER_01]: I think the one problem that would, how do you say it?
21:44
[SPEAKER_01]: So the answer is, it will be hard to, to recognize just only because the development of
21:58
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's too globalized, too fast.
22:02
[SPEAKER_01]: So if I hear a style that is very similar to how B-box was originated kind of like this hip-hop culture, when the hip-hop culture was born, that style I can tell.
22:21
[SPEAKER_01]: I can tell that is American, it's very easy to see that, but from the time that they started have international competition, and dominantly in Europe.
22:36
[SPEAKER_01]: Since 2003 or 2004, since that time, the beatbox, as an art form, beatbox, as an art form, is almost became its own genre of music.
22:53
[SPEAKER_01]: And the sound is very, a lot of sounds developed within the experimentation of the culture.
23:00
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's very self-reference as well.
23:03
[SPEAKER_01]: And the level, change every year is exponential, is insane.
23:10
[SPEAKER_01]: So, you only would hear, like, in my context, I already know some people that they got influenced by their language.
23:23
[SPEAKER_01]: And when they tell the story, it's very clear.
23:27
[SPEAKER_01]: For example, one of the best beatboxes in the world ever is, he's a horn champion from Bulgaria.
23:38
[SPEAKER_01]: And he was known for his very signature technical style.
23:45
[SPEAKER_01]: really really percussive and also very the rhythm is very odd in direct ways a lot of bot rhythm.
23:56
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's not like for for like how we usually here mainstream music but because like the folk music in Bulgaria is already very rich in rhythm.
24:08
[SPEAKER_01]: and the way he pronounces it, and then when he speaks the language, it's just like, ah, it makes sense.
24:14
[SPEAKER_01]: But I wouldn't know that if if I didn't hear his story, right?
24:19
[SPEAKER_01]: Or I wouldn't know that if if I hear him speak Bulgarian, because mostly the the Bipos community, we is a global community,
24:30
[SPEAKER_01]: Even his huge community, but it's also very small, is that everyone around the world, top beat bosses or communities, they would communicate with each other and mainly in English.
24:44
[SPEAKER_01]: But I think, from speaking with many people, the language affects hugely.
24:55
[SPEAKER_01]: But if you are a common person, or even myself, if I hear a beatboxes, especially in new school beatboxes, and I wouldn't be able to place why they are.
25:04
[SPEAKER_01]: Because the style is very standardized.
25:07
[SPEAKER_01]: A lot of the new sounds are also getting standardized.
25:11
[SPEAKER_01]: And you will hear a little technique around the world.
25:14
[SPEAKER_01]: That's not good, right?
25:17
[SPEAKER_01]: That's not a good.
25:20
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know, that's the thing.
25:22
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, that's the same conversation if we have about the amount of knowledge and information that we get from the internet.
25:31
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a good thing.
25:32
[SPEAKER_01]: It's very similar to that.
25:34
[SPEAKER_01]: Like everyone on the southern get access, it's accessible to everyone in the world, but also is standardized.
25:43
[SPEAKER_01]: This same thing.
25:43
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think the bar is much higher.
25:49
[SPEAKER_01]: And I see that top artists, they still have all of these standardized techniques, but also there's some spices.
26:00
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's separate.
26:03
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it always been like that.
26:05
[SPEAKER_01]: I think separate the top artists from the rest, right?
26:12
[SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, this is the standard.
26:14
[SPEAKER_01]: Like the bar now is much higher.
26:16
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm still learning so much, even from just some, all of a sudden, I think every year, all of a sudden you see some random kits from random countries that you didn't hear about before, all of a sudden just pop up and crazy stuff and then everyone learn from them.
26:39
[SPEAKER_01]: But that's the thing.
26:41
[SPEAKER_01]: I think the good thing about the community is that it's very tight.
26:45
[SPEAKER_01]: It's tight knit community.
26:46
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
26:47
[SPEAKER_01]: So the information travels very quickly and also their names also get hooked very quickly as well.
26:56
[SPEAKER_01]: So I don't think overall, I don't think it's the bad thing.
27:00
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
27:01
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, it does become boring a time.
27:03
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
27:04
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
27:04
[SPEAKER_01]: Anything else?
27:06
[SPEAKER_01]: Two dollars.
27:08
[SPEAKER_03]: Boring.
27:10
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I mean, if everyone's not sounding the same then, yeah, that's the part I think you mentioned, yeah, you know, when when I think about like a basketball player, you know, I think you hit 32 35 years old and you have to retire, right, because your reflexes, your ability, your skills, you cannot compete with a 18 or 23 year old player.
27:33
[SPEAKER_03]: your body just can't do it.
27:35
[SPEAKER_03]: When I think about beatboxing, it's a very physical thing.
27:40
[SPEAKER_03]: Perhaps not as critical as singing, because I think with singing there's a timber to the voice, there's a very unique quality and
27:52
[SPEAKER_03]: your vocal cords are affected a certain way, the changes a certain way.
27:57
[SPEAKER_03]: But as a beatbox artist, I think the reflexes and the creativity inside of your throat to mind coordination is very key and central.
28:08
[SPEAKER_03]: So is there such thing as a certain age where you start to slow down as a beatbox artist, or you age out of the game?
28:24
[SPEAKER_01]: At the moment, we haven't seen an example of beep boxes that train to this extent and also reach that edge.
28:35
[SPEAKER_01]: What do you mean by that?
28:36
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know.
28:40
[SPEAKER_01]: So a lot of the older beep boxes, the type of beep box that they do is very different.
28:54
[SPEAKER_01]: We cannot track this, but some of the legendary beatboxes, right?
28:58
[SPEAKER_01]: From the hip-hop town, the old school town, let's say, okay, they see all around.
29:07
[SPEAKER_01]: They see the beatboxing, the type of beatboxing, it's very different.
29:11
[SPEAKER_01]: They can't evolve, can't they?
29:14
[SPEAKER_01]: I think they totally can, but I think it's just the engagement with the community.
29:21
[SPEAKER_01]: push you to use certain techniques that is more demanding on your body.
29:30
[SPEAKER_01]: So a lot of the newer techniques, they, I think not a lot of people know that the beatbox community is purely experimental.
29:41
[SPEAKER_01]: The whole key of the community is to find ways to limit it.
29:47
[SPEAKER_01]: of your body in thermal vocal expression and so capacity, right?
29:53
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's that's that's that's to the purest form.
29:57
[SPEAKER_01]: Is that when you see social media content, you see B box battle.
30:02
[SPEAKER_01]: These are only the surface level, because you know our voice is being around since beginning of time.
30:13
[SPEAKER_01]: but only till now that people started experimenting with it, it feels very significant.
30:24
[SPEAKER_01]: This is the oldest instrument, right?
30:27
[SPEAKER_01]: And only now people are experimenting with it.
30:30
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's why, to the feeling to be in this community, just to push boundaries,
30:36
[SPEAKER_01]: is literally testing what's the limitations of a human body.
30:41
[SPEAKER_01]: But specifically, this section.
30:46
[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, back to your question.
30:47
[SPEAKER_01]: We don't have good example, just yet.
30:52
[SPEAKER_01]: And so far, I mean, I don't see much change in the body.
30:57
[SPEAKER_01]: I do feel like your breathing system, maybe in the future could get affected.
31:07
[SPEAKER_01]: I think the mental focus is not a problem, because a lot of the practicing, I mean, similarly to a lot of other music instruments, you get into flow state and it become muscle memory.
31:20
[SPEAKER_01]: These actually enhance your focus to be able to be in the zone and also just flow.
31:30
[SPEAKER_01]: Beatboxes are of any type of art form.
31:37
[SPEAKER_01]: is the easiest way for you to get into flow state.
31:43
[SPEAKER_01]: You don't need any devices, you don't need any instrument, you can do it literally anywhere.
31:50
[SPEAKER_01]: So there's literally no obstacle to just be and just do.
32:00
[SPEAKER_01]: So that part, we mentally, is very healthy.
32:05
[SPEAKER_01]: And I don't think with H, that can't be a good effect.
32:08
[SPEAKER_01]: Obviously, as any thing, there's a lot of people push it a little bit too hard.
32:15
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, like, they don't take care of themselves.
32:18
[SPEAKER_01]: They don't hydrate, you know, if these things can have a second of your body.
32:22
[SPEAKER_01]: But, you know, professionally, I don't see that so far, but there's no, not enough data.
32:30
[SPEAKER_01]: And also, personally, I don't think there's anything to affect it.
32:35
[SPEAKER_03]: That would make sense.
32:36
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, the muscle memory, I think, makes a whole lot of sense.
32:41
[SPEAKER_03]: How did you get into it?
32:46
[SPEAKER_01]: How did you become?
32:49
[SPEAKER_01]: Very similarly to most of people says my, of my generation is just YouTube.
32:55
[SPEAKER_01]: on the YouTube generation, I'm reaching 30 soon, but my generation is on, I learned most of the art from the internet.
33:09
[SPEAKER_01]: And there's no school that teach beat boxing.
33:13
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, even now, it's very little amount of platform around the world that actually give proper education on this.
33:25
[SPEAKER_01]: is hard to to make an education, for example, like a course for beatboxing because things like I said it's changing too fast, too fast, too globalized.
33:40
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
33:41
[SPEAKER_01]: So my brother just showed me a video online
33:55
[SPEAKER_01]: And he has a very amazing...
33:58
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, Razzo.
34:00
[SPEAKER_01]: He has a very amazing video that he performs the breakdowns competition.
34:08
[SPEAKER_01]: I think he's in 2004.
34:11
[SPEAKER_01]: But he was one of the first ones that popularized the idea of singing and beatbox during drummer at the same time.
34:20
[SPEAKER_01]: Wow.
34:22
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so like because you have a layer of your vocal, and then you have your lips to do the drum, so you did the routine.
34:30
[SPEAKER_00]: Please don't run the own pinnude, don't run the own pinnude.
34:37
[SPEAKER_00]: Please don't run the own pinnude.
34:38
[SPEAKER_01]: That was his technique.
34:40
[SPEAKER_01]: And the first time people hear that, it's like, wow.
34:42
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, even me, at that time, the first time I saw that video, I have to learn that.
34:48
[SPEAKER_01]: That is cool.
34:50
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was only in secondary school, very young, I mean, just in my bedroom, and very similar to most of people said, I would think that they also started very similar that way.
35:05
[SPEAKER_03]: And then did you sign for a contest or something in Vietnam or how did it become international?
35:14
[SPEAKER_01]: There were some clubs like, you know, like meet-up in Hanoi, very small or the students.
35:25
[SPEAKER_01]: I did some local competitions way back long time ago, but only when I already in America.
35:35
[SPEAKER_01]: So it was the last year of high school that I applied for an international people's competition.
35:43
[SPEAKER_01]: and I got in.
35:45
[SPEAKER_01]: I was the first Vietnamese ever to to qualify for an international people's competition is called Beatbox Shootout 2015.
35:56
[SPEAKER_01]: And yeah, I went to Austria to compete for that.
36:03
[SPEAKER_01]: And then after that every year I apply for more and also level up and slowly, you know, I think the American championship was the time that
36:17
[SPEAKER_01]: actually put my name on the panel on the map and also people know like I will be having this beatboxary then after that I actually every single year is a lot of different competitions very deep in the scene yeah it's amazing experience for sure I understand that you met your wife through the beatbox world as well right yes my wife is also a beatboxer
36:47
[SPEAKER_01]: She's amazing, her name is Carolina, her stationary is Chihuahua, but we in 2017 I was participating in a warm championship, beatbox competition and she was in Switzerland and she's from my wife is from Poland.
37:10
[SPEAKER_01]: as she traveled to Switzerland just to watch the competition.
37:14
[SPEAKER_01]: And then we caught up later, and you know, the rest is collaboration.
37:21
[SPEAKER_01]: If you guys collaborate now.
37:22
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, yes, we put our album together.
37:26
[SPEAKER_01]: We do a lot of content.
37:29
[SPEAKER_01]: We use to run more the YouTube channel.
37:34
[SPEAKER_01]: But now we still do, but we also do separate production a lot as well.
37:43
[SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, we still have music and videos coming out as well.
37:49
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, we have very different style as well, but it's very a good harmony.
37:55
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, combined.
37:57
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
37:59
[SPEAKER_03]: I could spend another two hours talking about beatbox in your world and all of the affected has on the hip-hop community in Vietnam, but I need to transition over to your voice-jump company, because I think that deserves a lot of, that deserves a lot of time to really get
38:29
[SPEAKER_03]: These, the work that you do at Voice Gem, what it seems to me, please correct me here, is that you take sound and you translate it into a visual medium.
38:40
[SPEAKER_03]: And it's like, they're not pixels, but they're like little tiny blocks.
38:44
[SPEAKER_03]: I think there's like 200 or 200,000 or something that forms these shapes.
38:50
[SPEAKER_03]: that you put into with color and it's just a beautiful thing.
38:55
[SPEAKER_03]: It looks like a clump of stars when I imagine what it looks like when I close my eyes.
39:01
[SPEAKER_03]: Can you tell me about the work at Voice Jam?
39:04
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, maybe I can share a little bit of context leading up to that a good transition from the beatboxing journey, right?
39:13
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, so I had many years traveling and also performing beatbox around the world.
39:21
[SPEAKER_01]: So it started from
39:23
[SPEAKER_01]: this core energy of experimentation, and also pure human expression.
39:29
[SPEAKER_01]: Slowly, I mean, a lot of performance that I did, I started thinking about how to build different experiences.
39:37
[SPEAKER_01]: So, different concepts, but also different, how to present.
39:43
[SPEAKER_01]: sounds in different ways.
39:46
[SPEAKER_01]: And slowly building different type of project.
39:49
[SPEAKER_01]: And in 2017, I found the studio here in Vietnam, school physics studio.
39:57
[SPEAKER_01]: And physics studio is kind of like a hub that me and also a few artists from Hanoi, we come together and also just to experiment with emerging
40:10
[SPEAKER_01]: for visual media and also experimental art form.
40:16
[SPEAKER_01]: And a lot of the work that we do and the research that we do is as an intersection of creative technology with art.
40:28
[SPEAKER_01]: So our multimedia art from sound visual,
40:32
[SPEAKER_01]: and also local culture as well.
40:35
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, simply all connected to the story that we were talking about.
40:40
[SPEAKER_01]: So voice change is one of the projects that I, the journey from the beatboxing, the study, the beatboxing journey, the study that I have on the human voice, and also the studies of creative technology and experimentation that we did at first.
41:02
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's called VoiceGames and the VoiceGames project is a cooperation between myself and also a conceptual media artist from London.
41:13
[SPEAKER_01]: His name is Harry Yeff.
41:16
[SPEAKER_01]: Station name is Reef's 100.
41:19
[SPEAKER_01]: And in fact, he also a deep practitioner of the human voice, also a beatboxes.
41:26
[SPEAKER_01]: Legendary beatboxes, Rick Swan.
41:30
[SPEAKER_03]: Did you guys meet through the beatboxing world?
41:33
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, yes, so when I was participating in this beatbox competition, Reeves won, or Reeves won 100, his name, he was a judge and he's much of a very profound figure in the community.
41:51
[SPEAKER_01]: very influential, very inspiring.
41:54
[SPEAKER_01]: And we met through Beatbox competition.
41:58
[SPEAKER_01]: And a lot of the conversation we had was around how to visualize voice and visualize sound.
42:06
[SPEAKER_01]: So this idea of connecting image and sounds has been around forever.
42:11
[SPEAKER_01]: And we did a lot of experimentation separately.
42:16
[SPEAKER_01]: But only in 2020, we got together not physically, but in our mind, because it was COVID, right?
42:28
[SPEAKER_01]: That didn't come out.
42:30
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, we started a project.
42:33
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, in COVID.
42:36
[SPEAKER_01]: We really think about the idea of the human voice, beyond spoken language, what has all the different quality that is going on in the vocal expression that people experience things every single day and taking for granted every single day.
42:58
[SPEAKER_01]: And the Voyaging Project really started from the idea of how to bring back the attention of people to the idea of voice and ultimately to pay attention to their own voice.
43:10
[SPEAKER_01]: So the fact that we created this system, the Voyaging is a generated system, basically a set of rules that extract a bunch of data from a bunch of unique data from each of the human voice.
43:24
[SPEAKER_01]: and has a processing power to translate it into a structure, an artwork.
43:31
[SPEAKER_01]: This structure is consisted of 200,000 particles to data point.
43:37
[SPEAKER_01]: Each of them is assigned XYZ, which is the coordination in space and also a color.
43:47
[SPEAKER_01]: So the consolation that you were mentioning is that of this 200 particle that moving in space and get form and also crystallize in real time.
44:00
[SPEAKER_01]: So the whole idea is we think about voice is very powerful.
44:05
[SPEAKER_01]: We know we're from practicing our voice.
44:09
[SPEAKER_01]: We know that it's very powerful and we believe that everyone
44:15
[SPEAKER_01]: knowledge that is very powerful, but most of the time people just don't pay attention to it.
44:19
[SPEAKER_01]: So how do we bring it in a different form?
44:23
[SPEAKER_01]: So imagine a voice that you can touch, a voice that you can see, then your relationship with the human voice is very different.
44:32
[SPEAKER_01]: And you can find all the value, how precious.
44:37
[SPEAKER_01]: the human voice is, and you can pay attention to your own voice, ultimately.
44:43
[SPEAKER_01]: So, if you, I don't know if on the podcast, you're going to show the image, but yeah, the voice change is this sculpture, not only digital, but also physical sculpture that is formed and colored by the human voice.
45:01
[SPEAKER_01]: So, every voice will create a different unique
45:07
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, when I think about it, I think about the images that you, the parameters that you chose to pick.
45:15
[SPEAKER_03]: It's an infinite amount of parameters, an infinite amount of colors, but obviously you had to pick a finite number of parameters to get this sort of, um, it's, it's a uniformity in the delivery in the, in, in, in the visual aspect.
45:37
[SPEAKER_03]: Every human voice is like a fingerprint.
45:40
[SPEAKER_03]: And when you look at it, you analyze it.
45:42
[SPEAKER_03]: You could see the shape is very unique.
45:45
[SPEAKER_03]: But why did you pick, or I guess my question is, how did you come to pick those parameters?
45:52
[SPEAKER_03]: Because they all look, you know, there's a stand, here it is, the question.
45:58
[SPEAKER_03]: There's a standardization to the form.
46:01
[SPEAKER_03]: why did you pick that?
46:04
[SPEAKER_03]: And how did you finally end up on that standardized form?
46:09
[SPEAKER_03]: Because I can imagine you can just keep picking as an artist or just keep picking a million different parameters and a million different output selections.
46:19
[SPEAKER_03]: But you landed on something very beautiful, very unique for the ultimate pipeline that comes out on each characteristic.
46:29
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I think the point is definitely doesn't stay at the abundance of data, that's definitely not the goal.
46:39
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I think the limitation is the key to highlights and also emphasize the uniqueness of each voice.
46:51
[SPEAKER_01]: So how is the question that we set for ourselves?
46:55
[SPEAKER_01]: How do we create a root set that we don't pick the output, but we design a system that only gear it toward an aesthetic, a feeling, like a visual feeling, but also highlight the uniqueness.
47:13
[SPEAKER_01]: of each every single voice.
47:16
[SPEAKER_01]: So this definitely go through the process, everything went through many trial and error and also fine tuning all of this data.
47:26
[SPEAKER_01]: And not all the data are raw, obviously, this is the design part of the system.
47:31
[SPEAKER_01]: But the key here is how to build this processing system.
47:36
[SPEAKER_01]: that is very straightforward and also it has enough influence that it can showcase the the special
47:50
[SPEAKER_03]: I asked that because when I look at a set of pictures of the constellation, the galaxy, I think about God, the creator.
47:59
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think about the parameters that when you pull back and you look at the whole universe in these pictures of the Hubble telescope or a shot, there's a standardization to all of it.
48:12
[SPEAKER_03]: And you know, as you're creating these parameters, I was thinking like,
48:18
[SPEAKER_03]: Did you ever meditate on the power of creation or your understanding of the creator?
48:26
[SPEAKER_03]: Because when you step back and you look at your sculptures, the voice gem products, it has that feeling of like, oh, so there's a god that put parameters on what we're looking at and what we're experiencing when we're looking at constellations or galaxies.
48:44
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I mean, it's definitely an inspiration for sure.
48:48
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, much of nature, we find out that there's a lot of mathematical equation that go into high, a lot of creatures or planes grow, how they form.
49:02
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I mean, like, specifically in the voice-hams equation, we also inspire a lot by the crystallization process.
49:12
[SPEAKER_01]: And these already have equation and we simply also we extract certain equation that also can create some sort of clustering effects or maybe can make the structure influence the structure's texture.
49:35
[SPEAKER_01]: some of the jam can feel more rough and some of the jam can feel more smooth, but it definitely feels very inspiring to connect these ideas of that already there from science but found in nature.
49:57
[SPEAKER_01]: to see that there's, yeah, I think to see the creations in, in nature is that exists, it's beautiful.
50:05
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think the creative process, much of it's definitely related to the healing.
50:15
[SPEAKER_01]: How significant that is that I think about everyday.
50:22
[SPEAKER_01]: to be honest, I have nothing about it so much.
50:26
[SPEAKER_01]: It's more as a feeling.
50:29
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think when we can just create something out of nothing, even when I was even when I'm beatboxing, can just flow in there just sounds and rhythm come out.
50:45
[SPEAKER_01]: Uh, I do believe that's the best feeling and the best quality of art, the art process, the art making process and also creating creative process in general.
51:00
[SPEAKER_03]: When I started a fly, who's like, when you record my voice and somebody comes out on a voice
51:13
[SPEAKER_03]: Is it the same every single time that my voice is projected or is it just me saying a word or a form of something coming from my voice and it only captures it one time or is there a consistency that every time I utter a string of words it's going to come out the same way.
51:33
[SPEAKER_03]: Like how does what are you capturing for?
51:36
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so a lot of time when we get a voice for this voice in archive, we ask people to record a two minute audio.
51:46
[SPEAKER_01]: And at the moment, the weight of how much of that recording influence and how much of your data, your fingerprint of the voice influence, they sit around 40, 60.
52:02
[SPEAKER_01]: So the data, the unique data of your voice, is really hard to change.
52:07
[SPEAKER_01]: For example, the resin that you have, the resin and frequencies that you have, there's specific codes that is really, really hard to change.
52:19
[SPEAKER_01]: unless you roll up from a child to an adult, then these tone can change.
52:29
[SPEAKER_01]: But that even when we look back to, we had four streams from a child before,
52:37
[SPEAKER_01]: a toddler and then she later she grew up and her voice changed a little bit but you see you can see the colors and also some sort of form and textures very similar the way she deliver her words change the way people usually have the way of their expression and the accent also influence
53:00
[SPEAKER_01]: in this.
53:01
[SPEAKER_01]: And these are very, these are the data that's, it's very hard to change.
53:05
[SPEAKER_01]: For example, if I speak in Vietnamese, like we said, it's very bouncy, it's very, there's the change in this very prominent compared to someone just speaking English, for example.
53:19
[SPEAKER_01]: And these kind of quality you will find very consistently and it's very hard to change.
53:26
[SPEAKER_01]: So definitely the unique data
53:30
[SPEAKER_01]: need to have more influence.
53:33
[SPEAKER_01]: Obviously the message and the audio recording also influence in that, because it's
53:40
[SPEAKER_01]: In a way, it's a capsule of time.
53:43
[SPEAKER_01]: It's that specific moment as well.
53:45
[SPEAKER_01]: That is frozen in time into a form.
53:49
[SPEAKER_01]: And a lot of people would share their message and share their ideas into a voice jam.
53:59
[SPEAKER_01]: But you will see the color and the form of the textures, definitely will be consistent.
54:08
[SPEAKER_03]: beatboxing, voice gems.
54:10
[SPEAKER_03]: These are just one of, I'm sure a few of the things that you do.
54:14
[SPEAKER_03]: What's in store for you in the future?
54:17
[SPEAKER_03]: What kind of things are you working on now?
54:21
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm running a media studio here.
54:24
[SPEAKER_01]: They're the first six studio.
54:26
[SPEAKER_01]: First six studio, we, at the moment, we creating a lot of immersive and interactive experiences in Vietnam, specifically focus in Vietnam.
54:38
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm working on a lot of conceptual performance at the moment as well here in Vietnam.
54:45
[SPEAKER_01]: And voicemails, there's a huge potential
54:50
[SPEAKER_01]: in the preservation of identity and cultures and we actually had a series back in 2023 of ethnic minority voices in Vietnam and in this series we have featured in different places in exhibitions but this is also a space that
55:15
[SPEAKER_01]: I believe have huge potential to bring in the language of art and creative technology.
55:24
[SPEAKER_01]: I think there's a lot of potential to give people a touch point, to connect with these stories and also connect with with culture.
55:33
[SPEAKER_01]: in the more, not only accessible way, but more engaging way.
55:38
[SPEAKER_01]: So, I mean, especially now, you hear a lot of stories about technologies or AI coming over, AI is coming and take away people's jobs and there's a lot of concerns with how the technology is developing now.
55:59
[SPEAKER_01]: at the same time with social media.
56:01
[SPEAKER_01]: But obviously, I think there's always two side of it.
56:05
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm very interested in how do we bring more value to people using technology, using language of art, how do we can, how can we give people personal value?
56:23
[SPEAKER_01]: Can give culture a platform?
56:27
[SPEAKER_01]: for preservation and also for showcase.
56:31
[SPEAKER_01]: I think there's huge potential this day in edge and it's more important than ever.
56:36
[SPEAKER_01]: And this is my mission in a way.
56:38
[SPEAKER_01]: So in a lot of different projects that I do, you will see the similar theme of identity preservation.
56:47
[SPEAKER_01]: because I think the most sustainable way to develop and to share technology or the story of technology is that it's focused on culture and focus on people.
57:01
[SPEAKER_01]: Because we still hear humanists hear, and there's huge potential and also huge demands for this and might as well use it for good.
57:16
[SPEAKER_01]: very important, as well, in Vietnam, I also working with a lot of traditional Vietnamese musician.
57:24
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm actually having a music video coming out soon.
57:27
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, very excited.
57:31
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it would be a song that is connected contemporary music with ethnic minority music, the harmon music.
57:46
[SPEAKER_01]: to bring in new expression and also this energy of experimentation to people, I think it has huge value, yeah, yeah, in general, I just want to share more art and just this feeling with people, I think people need it more than ever.
58:09
[SPEAKER_03]: spending the weekend with you was exciting, you know, I got to see, you know, the new Vietnam, the modern Vietnam through your eyes and through your conversations with me, the depth of your understanding of art and multimedia, your craft is extraordinary.
58:29
[SPEAKER_03]: It's international, it's world class.
58:31
[SPEAKER_03]: And, um,
58:32
[SPEAKER_03]: I think about the youth of Vietnam like you as a beacon of hope for my generation of Vietnamese, you know, looking at Vietnam developed, seeing the artists, seeing the brilliance that's coming out of Vietnam, such as herself, gives us a lot, a lot of hope.
58:54
[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you so much for coming on today, and I look forward to the years that we have in the future to see what else comes from your art.
59:09
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.
59:10
[SPEAKER_01]: It's been a pleasure.
59:11
[SPEAKER_01]: Thanks again, Jim.
59:12
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you for listening to the Vietnamese with Kenneth Wynne.
59:15
[SPEAKER_02]: Special thanks to Brittany Tran, to Jane Wynne, Catherine Wynne, Tina Fam, Sydney Jamie and Crystal Tran.
59:23
[SPEAKER_02]: Please find us on Instagram, Facebook and TikTok at the Vietnamese podcast.