Suboi seeks out transformation in nature

Vietnam-based rapper Suboi stars in an escapist fantasy of freedom and feeling in her newest music video Bet on Me.

The music video starts out in the city, a high-rise above the streets. Suboi, speaking about her baby, her love, the world around her, departs from Saigon for a rural village. Visibly pregnant, the film follows Suboi as she rediscovers the beauty in simple actions, connecting with her body, her new child, and her feminity in this unshackled view of the artist. The music is for her, for her child, not not for any lover, not for anyone else. 

Symbols of fertility and power appear in Suboi’s hands throughout; fruit, a vase full of water, a machete. The video is an emancipation, a declaration of freedom from the city, from confines, from the worlds around Suboi and her child. The journey is beautifully crafted, shot in the Vietnam countryside with a lo-fi fuzziness that imitates a homemade film. 

Bradley Tangonan helped bring this vision to life, lovingly capturing Suboi’s gentleness with her pregnancy as well as her exuberant dancing. The scenery is irenic, and the film creates a sense of energy, understanding, and peace.