How The Lady Gaga Of Vietnam Was Banned From Singing

Mai Khoi is a independent artist, musician and activist who nominated herself to Vietnam's National Assembly in pursuit of better human rights in her country.

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"I used to be a pop star," Mai Khoi says in her presentation at the Oslo Freedom Forum this September. "I had a lot of fans, shows and money."

Khoi, known as the Lady Gaga of Vietnam, traded in the trappings of fame to push for human rights and creative expression in her home country. It's a decision that's gotten her effectively banned from singing in the authoritarian country — and one she doesn't regret.

The pop star is petite and her English is lilting, as though her voice has been pressed upon a sinusoidal curve. Her words feel carefully plucked and laid down, one and then the next, in an earnest effort to communicate herself clearly, even in a tongue in which she has to search for words deliberately. (English is not Khoi's first language. Her quotes are transcribed here in the way she speaks.)

Two years ago, Khoi was a successful musician with multiple albums who'd won one of her country's biggest music awards. Still, she grew bored of the Vietnamese pop industry thanks to the country's restrictive censorship system. "I couldn't feel free," she says.

Vietnam is a communist, single-party state that forbids any challenge to its leadership and where rights such as freedom of speech and religion are severely restricted. Its human rights record is dire, according to non-profit Human Rights Watch, and some say it is "contending for the title of most repressive Asian government."

She stopped spending time with singers and musicians who she said censored themselves and spent time instead with "dissident artists who were doing some interesting things."

Soon, she became inspired to take political action. In 2016, in an effort to highlight the limits of political expression, Khoi attempted (unsuccessfully) to register herself for a parliament seat. "I was rejected from the ballot unfairly and [without any] transparency because Vietnam is a one-party state that does not allow for political opposition," says Khoi.

This move was the start of Khoi's problems with the government. Three weeks after submitting her nomination to the National Assembly, Khoi's music show was raided, she says, and a notice was put into a Vietnamese "police magazine" with the intention "to let people know that I am effectively banned from singing in public. So I couldn't sing in public in my country."

To be clear, Khoi is "effectively" banned because the Vietnamese government can not specifically ban her from performing, she explains. However, publishing the notice had a chilling effect. "People don't dare to invite me to sing," she says.

Since Vietnam's media is state run, Khoi was also no longer invited to appear on TV or in the press.

Also that year, Khoi attended a public protest after toxic industrial waste was released from a steel plant called Formosa Plastic contaminating waters and killing fish. She said several thousand peaceful protestors took to the streets and were beaten bloody by the police — including women and children, Khoi tells CNBC Make It.

"And what I've seen in that protest," she says, "that's the most strong feeling, the most strong emotion I receive and it make me sing out loud."

One challenge Khoi faced in getting Vietnamese people on board with her mission was that people in her country don't understand what freedom of expression means or why it is important.

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How Mai Khoi, the 'Lady Gaga of Vietnam,' was effectively banned from singing in her own country | CNBC Make It.