Minh Nguyen, known by his artist name Chong Ali, is a beloved husband and father, teacher, co-founder of streetwear apparel brand oizoioi, and organizer of the annual BrisAsia festival Southside By Night in Brisbane, Queensland. Drawn to creativity, his path of passion in Hip-Hop music led him to being the Hip-Hop consultant to Queensland Theatre production Viet Gone in 2023.
But before that when did he start? Who helped him start and what music does he make now? We explore Chong Ali’s music career starting from 2008 to bring you up to date.
Having an early interest in Hip-Hop culture, dancing BBOY and listening to rap music during his high-school years, Minh was inspired by American artists like Dr. Dre and Tupac through their lyrical authenticity and relatable socio-economic landscape. Commonly with rap music depicting stories of struggle by underprivileged minority groups the lyrical content focuses on overcoming adversity and achieving success.
Before pursuing his independent music artist journey as Chong Ali, Minh began his music career with Hip-Hop group EMR (Eat More Rice) with friends Daniel Henriquez and Paul Lee, releasing debut album Elevate in 2012.
EMR: Paul Lee, Daniel Henriquez, Minh Nguyen and Masahiro Tai
“We recorded our album in 2010-2011 and that was my first real exposure to the music industry in Australia. Fred Leone, who was the man that helped us record the album, he signed us to his record label, he mentored us, he taught us the in’s and out’s, recording, promoting the album, touring and playing shows in different states, he really showed us how things were done, on a professional level.”
Signed to music label Impossible Odds Records, the first indigenous owned music label, Minh and his friends were mentored by Fred Leone, a Butchulla songman and the first music artist to perform the Yidaki (didgeridoo) at this year’s Eurovision Song Contest 2024 in Sweden.
“When I saw EMR on stage that day at Stylin' Up, and I'm pretty sure it was 2009, my mind was blown, because at that point, in terms of hip hop in this country, I'd only ever seen what was like, Oz hip hop. So it was predominantly white dudes in the scene. And then I knew that I belonged to a community, and that was indigenous hip hop. So I get out there, and here they are on stage, and I was just blown away. There's these three dudes, three different ethnicities, just rocking it out, man, rocking it out. To hear the content, the lyrical content and the flows, it just blew me away."
Fred Leone, Paul Lee, Daniel Henriquez and Minh Nguyen
"I just started Impossible Odds Records. That came out of pure necessity because mainstream, there was no outlet for my music in terms of being indigenous hip hop, and I knew that if there was no outlet for me, how is there going to be an outlet for any of my other brothers from all these other different cultural backgrounds that grew up in between Inala and the North Side? Where were they going to go? How are they going to fit? Just like, how was I going to fit? So if I was going for the ride, I was taking all my brothers with me from every different nationality."
With this motivation to support artists of culturally diverse backgrounds, Fred lunged at the opportunity to take them under his wing and sign this ethnically diverse group that was passionate and eager to learn.
"So when I saw their passion on stage, heard the lyrics, how deep the lyrics were, and how in-depth the thought process was from these three young dudes. It was just amazing. For me, it was a no-brainer. I was just like, Man, you guys, you want to get it? I said, It's going to be a long ride. We're going to have to work through this, but I'm going to show you how to do this hustle from scratch, how to work through it because it was independent."
There was no money in the label. I was just like, Let's just do it. I'm doing it. I can teach you how to do it. We're going to do it together.Fred Leone
To dive back into 2012 to explore Minh and his group’s sound at that time we’ll now play a sample of Fingerprints by EMR.
Now despite achieving public accolades, releasing an album and performing interstate with his group, Minh refrained from telling his parents. Like many Vietnamese born in Australia, he felt that they wouldn't have understood or accepted his direction as it wasn’t necessarily the path that was generally taken within the community, especially one that was considered taboo and undefined.
“It never really was a thing of where I wanted to advertise to them since, just because, I just didn’t think they would understand. The way I grew up, it was all about education, academics was a priority. I understand that and I understand what my parents wanted was best for me but I was never really that way inclined. I was always pulled creatively to explore the ideas that I had.”
Growing up in a Vietnamese household, being a creative, just wasn’t really an option. You can do A, B or C and being a creative was D, but D wasn’t even on the multiple choice.Minh Nguyen (Chong Ali)
Minh voices his experience as a second generation Vietnamese Australian who’s artistic ambitions outside of education were hidden from his parents … this being until his song ‘Rose Colored Tint’ entered the final round of the Queensland Music Awards (QMA) in the Hip-Hop and rap category in 2018, an achievement that was worth telling and could be understood by his parents.
“We recorded it in my bedroom studio and we entered it into the QMA, I didn’t think much of it because I used to enter every year anyway just to see what it did. But this time it actually got through, all the way to the finals. This little song that my friend and I recorded in my bedroom, which I mixed and mastered, it was right up there at the finals of the QMA with these other songs that had major label backing. These other songs had big production, big engineers, big producers, big rappers … we didn’t take it home but I was so proud of our efforts, and, to me, it legitimized me as an artist. It gave me so much confidence knowing that I can create this thing just with this, my brain and my heart, and my friends, we can create this thing in my bedroom and stand up against these well funded, well resourced major label projects … and around about that time that’s when I started to speak abit more openly to my parents about the music stuff, because they understand merits.”
Minh Nguyen and friends attending Queensland Music Awards.
Having proven himself and releasing songs showcasing his proficiency with writing rap music, Minh highlights his learnings from, ARIA nominated music producer and artist, Kuya James working on ‘Goodbye’, a song on Kuya James’ 2020 debut album, ISA. A song depicting Minh’s parent’s migration story leaving Vietnam, his mother with child and his father on an over-crowded boat, coming to Pulau Bidong and making sacrifices to get to Australia.
“I remember Kuya James saying 'it’s so important that when you collaborate with artists, that all of the artists put the song first' … that was a big growth period for me, and I’m proud of what we did for that song because we intentionally leaned into representing my experience here as a Vietnamese Australian and we embraced the fact that I am a Vietnamese Australian, I’m not some Vietnamese kid trying to be Australian or an Australian kid trying to be Vietnamese. I got to this realization that I’m Vietnamese Australian, that’s exactly who I’m supposed to be, I don’t have to be one way or the other. I’m not too much of this or too little of that. I’m just exactly who I’m supposed to be.”
Chong Ali (Minh Nguyen) and Kuya James (James Mangohig)
“Working with Chong was super dope because I was already a fan of his rapping and I knew his first group EMR who had supported an act of mine named Sierra and I knew that EMR stood for Eat More Rice which you know as a Filipino it just cracked me up because my father who I called Tatay has made so many jokes about rice being our survival as Asians … with Goodbye we went really deep on the storytelling and I really love the way he constructed the three verses and it actually brought me to tears the first time he sent the demo through. When I think about the work with Chong it's been more than just representing like through a song it's about family it's about friendship it's about community it's about food and it's about realising that the culture is also evolving so I think we you know through Goodbye and through the work that we've done since and the work we'll do in the future I think we'll continue to pay tribute to those who come before us but also thinking of the future of for our children."
I need to represent who I am as a Vietnamese Australian so I encourage other Vietnamese Australians to stand up and represent who they are and what that means.Chong Ali (Minh Nguyen)
With the 50 Year Anniversary of Vietnamese arriving in Australia approaching, we’ll now listen to ‘Goodbye’ to understand his parent’s story from Minh’s lens, a story that will connect with many Vietnamese now calling Australia home.
Listening to this, many second generation Vietnamese Australians can resonate and reflect on their parent’s journey to Australia. Understanding how significant future generations are to Minh we asked him why it was important that the Vietnamese Australian identity be preserved and that the stories of our parents are told. Minh emphasizes that the first generation of Vietnamese Australians were motivated by survival, ensuring that their families had security and that their children had an education. Not having the time, nor the language or the luxury to think about their identities. With many taking under qualified jobs, putting aside their previous education, pride and working laborious jobs to provide for their families.
“It feels like sometimes we forget the efforts that our parents made to get here and establish themselves and through reflection, writing these songs and going through the process of trying to tell these stories its made me realise as well … deeper, that’s wild what they actually did, the commitment and the risk that they took to get us here and get us to where we are, and as a community, the resilience of our community, it’s insane what they’ve been able to do as a generation. For us to be able to even tell our story, we have to name ourselves, and for us to name ourselves, we have to know who we are. To identify as Vietnamese Australian, that can mean a whole bunch of different things to different people that live here as Vietnamese Australians. I’m just one example of it, I’m a Vietnamese Australian whose Vietnamese absolutely sucks. I can barely get by in Vietnamese, when I speak to my parents it’s Vinglish. Like I’ll pepper in English words with my Vietnamese because I know my parents can speak English as well and there’s that balance there because we lived in Australia as Vietnamese people. That’s who I am, that’s who I identify as, a Vietnamese Australian.
Chong Ali (Minh Nguyen) and Hoeyfarmer (Andy Quach)
As Vietnamese Australian creative talents have appeared Minh has found himself acting as a mentor to others, like Fred Leone did for him, educating those with a passion for Hip-Hop and giving back to the culture. One example is with Andy Quach, a Vietnamese Australian comedian, more commonly known as Hoeyfarmer with over 500,000 followers on social media releasing ‘Viet’ Gang in 2023.
"So the Viet Gang project came about actually from a comment I made on Chong Ali's Instagram, I basically asked can you teach me how to rap. Chong Ali reached out and said that he would teach me to rap and funny enough we hit it off and he taught me how to record raps. That was my introduction into making rap music. The Viet Gang song, Chong Ali already had the song prepared and he wanted me to do a verse of my own on it and I put my spin on it."
Even though Hoeyfarmer focuses on producing comedy skits, he expresses that working with Chong Ali has been pivotal in his progress producing rap music and finding his own voice in Australia’s Hip-Hop scene, even participating in Rap battles.
He allowed me to be myself and he definitely helped me be more confident in rapping. Basically our styles mix very well just basically our love of Hip-Hop and our love of being Vietnamese.Hoeyfarmer (Andy Quach)
Minh’s work as an artist over 15 years has not only allowed him to perform on stages across Australia and make long life friends with talented individuals but has also given him a role to support others in achieving their creative ambitions. With that we conclude today’s program with Viet Gang by Chong Ali and Hoeyfarmer.
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