Vietnamese Rap must stop

A few isolated rays of light like "After each frame" and "What did you do" could not attract the attention of Rap Viet season 4.

Four years ago, the live broadcast of the Rap Viet season one finale attracted more than 1 million live viewers on YouTube. The unprecedented figures helped Rap Viet ignite the rap music trend, creating a strong attraction for the music genre.

Until the 2023 season, the final awards show at its peak attracted just over 400,000 viewers. This was the final "resistance threshold" for Rap Viet season 4 to create the influence of a famous game show.

However, in less than a week, episode 15 of Rap Viet season 4 disappeared from the "trending top". The attraction of the Rap Viet finale was easily overshadowed by events that were dominating social media, such as Anh Trai and Son Tung's concert in Hanoi.

Rap Viet quickly cooled down after the final. Photo: Duy Anh.

Faded

Before Anh trai say hi and Anh trai vu ngan cong gai aired, Rap Viet was still the game show that audiences were most looking forward to in 2024.

The reason why Rap Viet has become the most successful brand in the history of Vietnamese game shows, after 3 consecutive seasons of domination on the YouTube platform. In particular, the strong rise of Rap Viet season 3 after a rather lackluster season 2 has helped this game show regain its appeal.

However, the reality happened according to a completely different scenario.

The huge appeal of Anh trai say hi and Anh trai vu ngan cong gai has overwhelmed before, during and after Rap Viet season 4. Every year, Rap Viet is hot from the casting round. This year, there are still thousands of contestants trying their hand at Rap Viet season 4. However, the casting sessions were held at a time when the show "Anh trai" was hot and the audience's attention was not focused on Rap Viet.

When Rap Viet first aired, the echo of "Anh Trai" was still strong. The conquest round of Rap Viet season 4 was completely lackluster, not creating a single hit. It had to rely on the breakthrough hit of Robber and Short, Rap Viet season 4 has a new product dominating "trending", significantly increasing the appeal of the game show.

Until the final journey, Rap Viet was still overshadowed by the show Anh Trai. In which, the "number one game show in history" (as of the end of 2023) was overshadowed by the show that shares the same production unit.

The phenomenon of "new waves pushing old waves" has crushed Rap Viet, similar to how Rap Viet put The Voice and Vietnam Idol into the past 4 years ago. A series of reasons leading to the collapse of Rap Viet include outdated scripts, poor quality of contestants, and fierce controversies before season 4 aired.

Karik's contestant Manbo was constantly attacked. Photo: Duy Anh.

Much controversy

Rap Viet seemed to collapse after season 2. The game show stopped production and returned in 2023 with a fresh look. The appearance of BigDaddy, Thai VG, Andree, Suboi in the judge position is an important change that helps Rap Viet season 3 create excitement once again.

In season 4, the same coaches and judges as above took charge of the show, only shuffled Suboi and Karik back to the coach's seat, pushing Thai VG to the judge's role. The game show innovated with a guest panel of judges through each round.

The guest judge position is theoretically a highlight for each round of Rap Viet season 4. However, in reality, the opposite is true, as F.Herro, Hieuthuhai and Changmo do not contribute much to the game show. In fact, the appearance of F.Herro and Hieuthuhai has made the show more and more turned away by the audience.

The audience asked: "Why not a Vietnamese rapper?" when F.Herro sat in the top position. Meanwhile, Hieuthuhai was judged to not have enough experience and career to sit in the "hot seat" to comment. Only Changmo was a guest judge who somewhat caused excitement.

The language barrier made F. Herro and Changmo obscure. They commented generally, rarely focusing on the quality of the candidates, what made them different, and commented purely from a professional perspective in line with their roles. Meanwhile, Hieuthuhai mostly just gave compliments and made cursory comments.

Rap Viet season 4 is a year with few outstanding performances, few hits but full of drama. In particular, the breakthrough round has the most controversy when the audience continuously debates the story of who deserves and who does not deserve to continue. The tolerance of the "judges", allowing rappers to sing on the show also causes outrage.

The Rap Viet coaches and judges are increasingly fading away. Photo: Duy Anh.

The problem of Vietnamese Rap

The decline in the appeal of Rap Viet basically comes from fundamental factors. That is, the team of coaches/judges has reached its limit within the program's framework. And the quality of contestants shows that Vietnamese rap has run out of talent to step up to the game show.

This year, Robber, Gill, and Dangrangto are the three most outstanding contestants. Gill is a former contestant who re-entered the competition. Robber passed the casting in season 2 but suddenly disappeared, and this year he returned to the show. Dangrangto is a rare rookie of the game show who meets the criteria of being new and having good professional quality. However, in the final round, Dangrangto suddenly dropped out of the competition.

Contestants Manbo, 7dnight, Coolkid, Saabirose made a promising debut in the conquest round. They shouldered the responsibility of being the new factors that created an explosion for Rap Viet season 4. However, the common point of all of them was that they started off explosively but gradually faded away. By the final round, they all disappeared.

Rap Viet season 4 had the weakest competition. After round 2, the audience predicted that the championship race would only be between Robber, Gill and Dangrangto. In the first final, Dangrangto dropped out and Gill lost form. Most of the audience easily saw that the victory was in Robber's hands and that happened.

According to the program's announcement, there were more than 4,000 candidates registered for the casting. However, the reality is that there are very few rappers good enough to be selected for the recording round. Rap Viet has entered a cycle of previous season's contestants re-entering the competition, while new quality factors only appear in small drops.

Through 4 casting seasons, famous faces and "big" rappers from the teams have stepped onto the Rap Viet stage one after another. The shortage of rap talent for game shows has become evident.

Rap Viet has another problem with the lack of surprise. The "format" of the game show is too old. The crew of Rap Viet season 4 tried to innovate the format by giving the coaches more power to choose contestants in the conquest round. However, the situation in the conquest round of season 4 was considered chaotic because the coaches had more power, even reducing the attractiveness of the contestant competition compared to the time when the "golden hat" was the only privilege.

More broadly, rap music is no longer extremely exciting for the audience. Among a series of performances in the breakthrough round of Rap Viet season 4, the most "viral" song was Thuy Chi's voice in the support performance of Nhat Hoang. The real quality raps of Rap Viet season 4 cannot compete on the "trending" track, whether it is Gill or Robber in the most recent episodes.

In the history of Vietnamese music, a game show that was born and lasted for 4 seasons is special. Maintaining its appeal for as long as Rap Viet is truly an achievement. But the game show has been on the decline, when all elements have fluctuated compared to the first seasons.