Hanoi's ling:chi Built Pound Town to Give Vietnam Its First Ghetto House Night

Traxman flew into Hanoi to play ghetto house, the Chicago sound billed as a first for the country's dancefloors. He wasn't booked by a festival or an international promoter. He was booked by ling:chi, the Hanoi selector behind Pound Town, under her other name, DJ CHICA.

The Two-Deck Split Life

ling:chi started out in 2018, at 18, with a mix called 'Trip to the Orient' that mixed Middle Eastern sounds into downtempo house. It was good enough that Bui Phong signed her to his agency immediately. A year later she moved south to Saigon, where she worked her way through Candi Shop, The Lighthouse and Bam Bam. She went on to play a Boiler Room session recorded at Saigon's Khu 13. Mixmag Asia later called her one of Vietnam's most promising talents and named her Creative Director for its Vietnam edition.

Under her main alias, ling:chi plays house and techno built for a crowd: 'the more accessible, crowd-pleasing side,' in her own words. DJ CHICA is the other half of her, and the stranger one.

Enter DJ CHICA

'DJ CHICA is my alter ego, where I let go of expectations and just have fun,' she said when the project went public. 'It shows a limitlessly fun and unserious approach to Asian dancefloors.' The spelling nods to ghetto-tech's Chicago lineage, DJ Funk, DJ Deeon and DJ Godfather, and the syllables come from her own ID card: 'Chi' is printed on it, 'Chica' is Spanish for young girl.

DJ CHICA turned the alter ego into a production debut. 'Hotel Suite' runs her own vocal sample over a 909 drum backbone, bass-heavy and street-leaning. It came out on Subterranean Playhouse, the label DJ Slugo runs himself, who liked the track enough to remix it. A ghetto-tech pioneer putting his own name on a Hanoi producer's first release is not a small co-sign.

Pound Town

The club night came before the record. ling:chi built Pound Town to bring ghetto house culture into Vietnam 'for the very first time': Traxman, the Chicago footwork and juke originator, played his first Vietnam date alongside rising local selector Monét and Useph of the Electric Bazaar festival crew. Doors ran VND200,000 in advance, VND300,000 on the night, a price built for a scene still finding its audience rather than one cashing in on it. Vinahouse is what Resident Advisor describes as a style of EDM that jacks up local pop with blistering bass. Ghetto house is dirtier, built around minimal 808 and 909 drum machines and sampled vocals.

What ling:chi has is a Chicago label owner's remix on her own debut and a headliner who played his first Vietnam date. In a scene this size, that is how the next booking gets made.

Cover photo: Press photo via Mixmag Asia.