Mai Khoi is a Vietnamese artist and activist. At the age of 12 she wrote her first song and joined her father’s wedding band the same year. Mai Khoi rose to stardom in 2010 after winning the Vietnam Television song and album of the year awards. Several years later she became increasingly uncomfortable having to submit her work to government censors and, thinking she could reform the system from within, nominated herself to run in the National Assembly elections. Her campaign sparked a nationwide debate about political participation and culminated in a meeting with Barack Obama. Shortly after Mai Khoi started an avant-garde dissident trio (Mai Khoi Chém Gió) and the group released their debut album “Dissent” in 2018. Working at the interface of art and activism Mai Khoi has developed her most unique art form to date. Her new sound is an emotionally-charged fusion of free jazz and ethnic Vietnamese music, with her most political, yet personal, song lyrics ever. Today, she leads efforts to promote freedom of artistic expression in Vietnam for which she was awarded the Vaclav Havel International Prize for Creative Dissent and Freedom Of Speech Award from the Roosevelt Four Freedoms. Her activism has, however, come at a high price. She has had her concerts raided, been evicted from her house, and has been detained and interrogated by the police. She was forced to leave Vietnam at the end of 2019. Mai Khoi has created and performed an autobiographical-multimedia -musical performance called Bad Activist with her band Mai Khoi & The Dissidents in the past 5 years living in exile.
