Meet the Sun* 's rapper writing a song about Covid-19 that went viral on social networks

To better understand the process of the song's release, as well as a few more insights about the author, Sun* News reporter has had a quick interview with Hoang Trong Hieu.

Hello Hieu. Can you introduce a  little bit about yourself?

Hello everyone,

Mình từng 13 năm không thể ăn thịt, cá hay các loại chế phẩm đến từ động vật. Mình chỉ ăn ruốc và rau muống xào, mẹ mình đã vô cùng khổ sở vì phải giã ruốc. 

I almost got kicked out of my house because I wanted to make music.

I used to stay up 3 nights to subtitle into Vietnamese a lot of articles about a famous Korean dancer I know through Instagram. Just because I like her.

My friends call me a crazy guy. And I love that.

I'm Hoang Trong Hieu B - Web developer from EUV 2.

Like music but choose to be a programmer?

In 2017, I knew that I really wanted to make music. But my parents are completely against it. I can't ask my parents to provide me music lessons. So I decided to earn money to learn music by myself.

And I chose to become a programmer for two reasons: First, my major at university is Electronics and Telecommunications, and in the subjects of this major, I only like programming. Second, I really like Mark Zuckerberg, Daniel EK (CEO Spotify) and Elon Musk. Especially, Daniel EK is both a musician and a tech billionaire himself. I also want to become someone like him in the future!

Working as a progammer, when do you write songs?

Actually writing rap or lyrics is just a way to retell a story, describe an emotion. If there is no story, no emotion, then there is nothing to write. The process of writing music does not matter, but the experience of daily life does.

I feel like going to work, interacting with colleagues at Sun* are the times when I have the most emotion. I can't just sit at home and write music.

There is always a place for me to write down lyrics (a notebook or a phone). Whenever I have an emotion, come up with a good sentence, I will save it as a draft. To make a song, I will have the theme first. Later in about a week, I will read stories or movies every night about that topic, then I will draft first. I drafted for about a week and write lyrics and record in a certain night. So, it only takes me 1-2 hours a day to write rap, which doesn't effect on programming.

Like Sun*, I also have my own core values. My core value is sharing - its form of expression is the story. In other words, I live to hear and tell stories. Whether it's a software product or a music product, they all have a story. So now, I'm serious about both my work at Sun* and my music work. Fortunately, the two jobs are not in conflict, so I can easily do both.

Why rap music and not any other kinds of music?

You can see, making rap music only requires a pen, a notebook and a lot of practice: don't stop reading, listening and writing. It is quite similar to learning to program.

I focus on rap / hiphop and a little RnB. I have been seriously studying rap for 1.5 years. Currently, I am learning to do beat, remix and mixing vocal.

How do you know Sun*?

To be honest, I got to the company thanks to Sun*'s Youtube channel.

At the time of 2017, I didn't have any background in software programming. I need a place where I can learn and experience the process of creating software products. At that time, I used to watch youtube, and by chance a video about internship in framgia (now is Sun*) appeared on my feed. The video thumbnail was a friend I knew, so I clicked to watch it. After watching a series of videos on the company's youtube channel, I was impressed with a few things:

1, The interior of the company is really beautiful. I quite like the black orange card and the Freespace zone.

2, The CEO of the company has a kinda weird hair look, but that's what I like most about him.

3, I really like the company's daily Morning speech program.

During that time, many of my friends in the Telecommunications Department shared information about the Ruby Open Training course of Framgia. This course is extremely suitable for me because it requires no experience, no money,  you can have chance to practice creating products. I decided to apply to join Ruby training program. I have been practicing for 1.5 years and have been a full-time employee for 5 months. During my time here, I'm really happy.

You know, each software product usually serves a very large customer market (usually millions to hundreds of millions of people), so the story of a software product will be extremely interesting. The process of working to create a software product in a Digital Creative Studio like Sun* has inspired me to write music.

Why did you decide to write the song "Sun * rap - Kill the covid"?

In mid-February, I started preparing for the rap album that I have been cherishing for a long time. I was planning to buy some beats from Wxrdie, who is a young producer I really like, to prepare for this album. At that time, I also planned to join Sun* Music Club for a rapping event in the company to help Sunners be more interested in approaching basic knowledge so that they could write a rap song. However, in order to teach people, I need to let everyone in the company know me first. So, I decided to work with Sun* Music Club to make a song related to the company's core value Be A Team for 2 purposes:

- Responding to Be A Team Month (March)

- Have a product for Sunners to listen to, and know about me.

Usually, for a small event like this, one would use a free beat to make music for non-commercial purpose. However, as a person who respected the copyrights of the artists, I decided to take the beat I bought from Wxrdie to write the lyrics to the Sunners, a little expensive though (laughs).

I spent 2 weeks just drafting and writing continuously to finish the full version for the song Be A Team. On March 8, the song Be A Team was completed. At 1:00 AM on 09/03, the Board of Directors announced that all employees would work remotely. That means I will have to stop the rap training event that I have prepared for a long time. Get angry by "The Covid" , on the morning of March 10, after discussing with the IC team, I modified the lyrics and turned the song Be A Team into a version of "Sun* rap - Kill the covid" that IC Group has just released. This song both to cheer the spirit of AllSun* together against pandemic, just entertain people after the boring remote working hours at home.

Everyone is curious about the rapper "Hieu from You must be addicted to me"! Can you explain a little bit?

"You must be addicted to me" is currently the name of some of my music channels. But in the future, I want it to be a music production team. Later, if I have the opportunity to stand in front of the audience, I will introduce myself briefly:

"Hello, I'm from You must be addicted to me".

I want the listeners to only remember "You must be addicted to me" instead of my name, for 2 reasons:

1, I want listeners to remember all the people who created that music product.

2, I want to minimize the attention of the listeners to my private life. Because personal things don't make my music better.

Can you share a little about your future music plans?

Besides working with Sun* to create quality software products, I continue to produce music products on spotify and youtube. I am also looking for more people who are good at the fields that I am not good at, such as: making pictures, making music videos, managing finance, marketing ..... to work together. The future I want "You must be addicted to me" will be a team that can make quality music products.

Whether making music, or software, I want it to be a product of social sharing. The plan to do a rap event at Sun* is also a sharing. Because 4 years ago, when I started writing rap, no one taught me. I have to collect knowledge from foreign rappers for a long time and it takes time. So, I want to help the Sunners take a little time .

I also find myself a good writer, next time I will continue to practice this skill. Currently, I'm learning to mix vocal and beat by myself.

Thanks Hieu for this interesting conversation! Wish Hieu will have more successful music products.