Nhạc đỏ or literally Red Music is the common name of the revolutionary music (nhạc cách mạng) genre in Vietnam. Red Music was formed during the communist Việt Minh and the First Indochina War and later strongly promoted across communist North Vietnam during the Vietnam War, to urge Northerners to achieve reunification under the Workers' Party of North Vietnam and fight against the "American imperialist puppet" in South Vietnam. Other forms of non-traditional, non-revolutionary music and culture in the North, like Vietnamese popular music and Western music and culture, were banned, being labelled as "counter-revolutionary", "bourgeois", or "capitalist".
One of the earliest composers of revolutionary songs was Đinh Nhu (1910–1945). Trọng Tấn (born 1976) is considered the young "Hoàng tử nhạc đỏ" (Prince of Red Music).
References
- Alexander Cannon Reorienting the Voices in Nhạc cách mạng: Constructing Identity in Vietnamese Revolutionary Songs.
- Asian music: journal of the Society for Asian Music Volume 35 Page 75 Society for Asian Music 2004 " Đinh Nhu (1910-1945) assumes an important position in the hagiography of Vietnamese revolutionary music. Captured by the French after participating in the Nghệ Tĩnh Soviet uprising in 1930, he organized cultural events in prison including plays and singing."