Miscellany: I Think I'm Learning Vietnamese, Part 3 - V-Pop for beginners

It's been almost eight months since I started learning Vietnamese, and I've been trying to keep myself motivated by injecting some fun into the process. Case in point: listening to some Vietnamese pop artists and trying to decipher the lyrics. Here are my favorites so far:

MIN - Cà Phê ("Coffee")

This song was a top 10 hit in Vietnam this year, and it's not hard to see why - catchy chorus, simple idea, and very modern production.

Sample lyric: Ngồi uống cà phê đến tối ("Sit and drink coffee all night").

Suboi - N-Sao? ("How?")

Suboi is Vietnam's "queen of hip hop."  While many of her songs contain English, she also exploits Vietnamese's monosyllabic nature to full effect in her verses.

Sample lyric: Tui là Vinja cờ xanh năm lá ("I’m a Vi(etnamese) (Ni)nja green five-leaf flag" [note that "cờ xanh" sounds like the Vietnamese word for cannabis, "cần sa"]).

Sơn Tùng M-TP - Chúng Ta Của Hiện Tại ("We at the present")

In turn, we have Vietnam's "king of V-pop." There's a little controversy on this track, as Tùng was accused of plagiarism, but everyone was paid off eventually.

Sample lyric: là áng mây bên trời vội vàng ngang qua ("The clouds in the sky hurried past").