By Kevin Truong ’22
Last night, April 27, Gucci Gang hit owner Lil Pump came to Vietnam to perform in Saigon city. His appearance received a lot of welcome from the Vietnamese audience since this is a rare occasion for a famous rapper from the U.S. to come to Vietnam to perform. That’s why the price of the table to see him perform is also relatively high, ranging from 30 to 120 million Vietnam dongs per table ($1,300 – $5,200). It is known that the table closest to the stage is also auctioned for up to 500 to 600 million Vietnamese dongs ($22,000-$26,000). Perhaps because of the luxury of high-priced tables to see Lil Pump perform, there are some people who have to keep their images quite a bit. Many videos on Vietnamese social networks after Lil Pump’s performance were posted right after the show, showing that the audience’s atmosphere was completely opposite to the enthusiasm that Lil Pump brought. Most of the audience just stood to record for their social media, did not even know the lyrics of each song, and did not really hype out with the rapper. Even the hit Gucci Gang couldn’t help lift the audience’s spirits at the Club.
After a video of his performance was shared on social media, it received tons of different comments. At first, social networks said that this show was a disaster when the atmosphere was not at the high level needed. The audience just took out their phones to record videos without hyping out with the rapper. In addition, a famous rapper in Vietnam, Lil Wuyn also left comments about the bad attitude of the famous U.S. rapper. He said Lil Pump came relatively late, turned on the music louder than the microphone, and didn’t bother to sing that much. Lil Wuyn said that Lil Pump stood to drink water many times, and no longer eagered to stir up people in the club, so the audience was not able to do that in return. According to an article shared on the rap forum by an audience member named Viet Hoang, he said that these nearly a month-long rumors about Lil Pump’s arrival in Vietnam brought a lot of attention on social networks; when Lil Pump’s news that for sure he was going to Vietnam, many hip-hop fans in this country were overjoyed by the appearance of this male rapper, followed by the back-and-forth words of Lil Pump. Specifically, this guy has “flop” to Asian countries to earn more fame and to earn more money, ranging up from $10,000 to $30,000 a ticket. A lot of people in Asia feel this amount is not worth it at all. The evening of April 27 was one of the clear examples, Lil Pump’s show in Vietnam ended with a disaster; it was worse than anyone could imagine. The owner of the hits Gucci Gang had a fine night of singing, but only with the male rapper himself. We all know that Lil Pump at the moment is no longer at the top of the US rap. But with the rap songs performed last night, although Vietnamese do not know much about Lil Pump, the melody of Gucci Gang and I love It cannot be ignored. The hit of the songs above is undisputed, but for many people last night was like listening to a song by Ed Sheeran performed. From a warm welcome at the airport to the nightclub on April 27, it ended up with a huge disappointment for the hip-hop atmosphere that everyone expected. This might be considered Lil Pump’s worst performance ever in Asia.
