She may never return to the stage. But for those who were there—in those sweaty Saigon bars, pressing their ears to transistor radios to hear her banned singles—Dina Sky is already eternal.
In late 2007, at the peak of her fame—she had just won "Best Rock Act" at the Dedication Music Awards (Giải Cống Hiến)—Dina Sky vanished.
If you find a CD copy of Chạy Trốn Mặt Trời in a used bin, buy it. Do not negotiate the price. You are holding a piece of history. Searching for more underground Vietnamese rock? Check out our guides on Bức Tường (The Wall) and the forgotten all-female band "Hoa Sữa." dina sky
Rock music was considered fringe noise.
In a conservative society that expected women to be soft, Dina wrote lines like: “Đừng gọi em là đóa hoa / Hoa sẽ tàn / Gọi em là cơn bão” (“Don’t call me a flower / Flowers wilt / Call me the storm.”) Her 2004 album Chạy Trốn Mặt Trời (Running from the Sun) was banned from several radio stations for being "too aggressive." But that ban only made the cassette tapes sell for triple their price on the black market of Luong Ngoc Quyen Street (Saigon’s "Music Street"). Here is where the Dina Sky story turns from biography into folklore. She may never return to the stage
The music video—low budget, shot in an abandoned warehouse with the band wearing leather jackets in 35°C heat—became an overnight sensation on VTV3’s Bài hát tôi yêu (The Songs I Love) request show.
But sometimes, that is the mark of true underground royalty. If you find a CD copy of Chạy
This is the story of Dina Sky, the woman who taught a generation of Vietnamese youth how to scream. Born in Hanoi but raised in the cultural melting pot of post-Đổi Mới (Economic Renovation) Saigon, the artist known as Dina Sky (full name: Đinh Thị Thanh Thúy, though she rarely uses her legal name in press) emerged at a time when the Vietnamese music industry was dominated by two genres: sentimental Nhạc Vàng (Yellow Music) and state-sanctioned revolutionary songs.