Hip hop with a smiling face

Rap music may not be the first thing that comes to mind when thinking of communist Vietnam. While pop and rock music rule the airwaves, the conservative country is also home to a thriving hip hop movement - and its figurehead is a 23-year-old woman named Suboi.

Based in Ho Chi Minh City - the former Saigon - Suboi, born Hàng Lâm Trang Anh, has become the most visible hip hop artist in the country, alongside other performers such as Wowy, YunoSk and Maximus. Together, they have established a very Vietnamese version of rap music that avoids the genre's typical lyrical concerns of sex and drugs - and particularly politics.

Suboi, described in some reports as Vietnam's answer to American rapper Nicki Minaj, has become so successful she has been enlisted as a brand ambassador for several commercial giants impressed by her street cred and stellar popularity among Vietnamese music fans. Her popularity won her a headline slot at last month's Vietnam Festival in Tokyo, where she met US rap icon Mos Def. "I didn't know what to say. I just hugged him," she says.

In Tokyo, she felt "lost in translation", Suboi says - unable to read signs or orient herself, but back down to earth in Saigon, she feels "happier and more concentrated". The city's rap scene is booming, but more collaboration, curiosity and adaptation are needed to elevate the music at home, Suboi says, because of its mixture of "realness" and poetic romance, which she finds therapeutic.

Another challenge is channelling her anger like her idol, Eminem. "I got into him when I was 15, and I was like, 'I wish I could do something like that - he's not afraid to show his own perspective'," she says, adding that this isn't easy if you are a Vietnamese girl still living at home with your parents.

For Vietnamese artists who perform in their own language, mastering rap is even harder because of the language's tonal tilt. Undaunted, Suboi has extended herself by incorporating Chinese-Vietnamese and French-Vietnamese compound words.