VietNamNet Bridge – Impassioned with hip-hop, young ‘break boys’ are willing to pay for overseas trips just for the chance to meet international hip-hop stars.
 
Spreading the love
 
The pioneer for “Hip-hop exchange” at the regional and world levels is the “Big Toe” hip-hop troupe. As one of the first hip-hop groups in Vietnam, Big Toe currently has around 40 members, including 8 girls, the youngest is 11.
 
According to group leader Nguyen Viet Thanh, after several years practicing and performing locally, Big Toe went abroad for the first time in 2005 when it was the only Vietnamese hip-hop group taking part in the Botysea (Battle of the year of Southeast Asia) festival in Bangkok, Thailand. This event gathered around 70 break boys from Laos, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines and Vietnam.
 
To advertise Vietnamese culture, eight Big Toe members performed hip-hop dances to the melody of famous Vietnamese song writer Xuan Hong’s “Tieng chay tren soc Bom Bo”, which talks about the lives of Central Highland people.
 
One year later, also at Botysea in Thailand, Big Toe performed a hip-hop dance based on the melody of a Vietnamese folk song “Beo dat may troi” and won fourth prize.
 
Big Toe, themselves, paid for a trip to China and Denmark to perform hip-hop. Its “Friendship train” dance performed in Guangzhou last year impressed Chinese audiences and break boys of 20 hip-hop groups.
 
“We learnt much from each trip. When we came to Denmark, many people didn’t know about Vietnam, but after our performance, they shook our hands, embraced and kissed us to show their friendship to people from a far away country which they had just met for the first time,” Thanh said.
 
Eastside connection
 
Following Big Toe, other local hip-hop troupes are going abroad. Halley Crew last year was invited to attend the Boty Asia (Battle of the Year), the largest hip hop contest in Asia, in South Korea, but the group could not go because of formality-related problems.
 
Pham Minh Hoang, Halley Crew’s team leader, said that they are endeavoring to introduce Vietnamese hip hop to the world. Through website www.halleycrew.com and members’ blogs, the team is introducing themselves to Vietnamese and international hip hop fans. They also post video clips on the website.
 
Other hip hop groups are doing the same to take advantage of the borderless Internet, for example Big Toe with http://bigtoecrew.com, Bigsouth, Freestyle, C.O, New Wave, New Zen, Stylish, and Questsion with www.bboyworld.com, www.youtube.com, www.1000pour100.com, www.style2ouf.com, www.bboyworld.com.
 
Through the Internet, Vietnamese break boys have foreign friends. In 2006, Big Toe, Halley Crew, and C.O. invited Botysea 2006 Champions, the Ground Scahet Baraker hip hop group to Vietnam to judge the Crazy Hands hip hop contest held in Hanoi.
 
Last year Big Toe worked with a German hip hop expert, Niels Storm Robitzky, who has worked as examiner for over 300 international hip hop contests and French artist Sebastien Ramirez.
 
“This year we will participate in a contest in Singapore in March. We also plan to invite experts from the US or Holland to Vietnam to work as judges for a hip hop contest,” said Big Toe’s leader Nguyen Viet Thanh.
 
Halley Crew’s team leader said that the Boty Vietnam will be held this year to select the best group for Boty Asia 2008. Halley Crew has also met with some American and British hip hop experts.
 
(Source: Tien Phong)