Story / Jennalynn Fung
Photos / Michelle Sy
A lot has changed for Thuy since her first interview with LADYGUNN. In April 2024, she became the first Vietnamese-American artist to perform at Coachella. In May 2024, she performed at the 88rising Head in the Clouds (HITC) NY music festival. And on October 30th, she embarked on her second world tour for her third project, wings.
Thuy, too, has changed. She’s become more comfortable in the limelight, even asking for attention at times. For one, she’s dyed her hair a bright, sherbert red; she explains, “Anytime you enter a new era, when you’re working on a new project [wings], you like to change it up – to kind of go with the theme of the next era in your life.”
In the sunlight, her hair looks like it’s on fire. She’s shed her shyness like a butterfly emerges from their chrysalis, spreading their wings. She’s here to take up the warmth, particularly from her fans, who have more easily recognized her through her hair color alone. “I was on Sunset in Los Angeles and I had red hair. Somebody yelled through the window: ‘Thuy, I love your music!’ I was just like, ‘what? That is so crazy.’ So now, I’m gonna keep the hair for a little bit because you could spot me out. There’s like a level of confidence that I feel like I’m unlocking, just from changing my hair color.”
The last time she had sat down with LADYGUNN, she had revealed she was just beginning to get more in touch with her feminine side – she was figuring out how to actually feel sexy. A year later, she’s on her way to becoming an aphroditic main pop-girlie. saying, “This is a different Thuy that I feel like has always been inside me.” Her music video for “don’t miss me too much” was her opportunity to bring it out of herself.
The music video begins with a dark, puddle-filled bunker where Thuy dons a hood before walking by a couple making out. The dance itself is sensual and sexual – everyone is wearing either leather or sheer fabric on top of sweaty skin. Lights flash, bodies move with the music, and the camera’s frame rate speeds up and then lags. A mermaid in a tank mirrors Thuy’s movements, but provides a refuge from Thuy’s intense seductive stares, asking viewers to determine who the real siren is. It’s unlike any of the videos Thuy has put out before, which are typically bright colored and fun, sometimes with a cameo from her dog, Oliver.
“I feel like I’m always trying to push myself further, especially visually. I’m always trying to get out of something that feels comfortable. Comfortable for me is like wanting to be in sweats and do nothing, you know? But I love being able to be in love with my body, because I think that was always something that I struggled with,” she says. When talking about her “Hair Down” music video, which was the first single to be released from the new album, Thuy giggles at how she had opted to wear a fuzzy thong.
Thuy mentions that she often felt like she wasn’t skinny enough or the “perfect” body type. The songstress is of short, but curvy stature; yet her hyper feminine form was something she didn’t see represented in the media as beautiful. Growing up, though, she began to realize there was no such thing as perfect. More recently, she’s felt positive about her own body, and she’s channeled that love in wings.
Her most streamed song on this work remains “hair down,” an anthem of self love and empowerment.
The lyrics in her album also showcase her expanding perspective on love and desire. However, it’s bolder than ever, with the discussion of sexual availability being far more explicit. Combining knowing what she wants with also knowing what she deserves, Thuy’s second work is clearly devoted to the divine feminine.
In “whatchu gotta say,” she writes “You’ve been staring in my direction all night / Know just what you need, might get it from me // I’m the life, I’m the life of the party.”
Thuy’s eagerness comes through in track 6, titled “shy boy,” where she sings coaxing-ly to her lover “Remember the nights we stayed up talking? / We both wished we were lip-locking / Had me dripping wet, need a new faucet.” There’s “roleplay,” which doesn’t mince any words, and is at times painfully obvious the lengths she’ll go to please her partner, and most importantly herself. “D8” takes the literal to a whole new notch— at one point she is just naming different kinds of dates someone can take her on. The lyrics go on and on, even in unsuspecting songs like “fairy godmother” and “cloud 11.”
The depth and soulfulness of her music remain, though. In “crash and burn,” which sonically harks back to her older and most popular work, she sings “It’s deeper than you up on my body / I’m tryna feel what my heart desires / I’m up for days, I lost my mind / Ten million ways we crossed the line.” Thuy’s words of wisdom on knowing when to stop also demonstrates her prioritization of mental health.
On her Instagram story the day before her performance at HITC, she posted “everyone has lows, it’s going to be okay because I’ve been through them.” Thuy describes these moments as temp checks to understand where all of her followers are at that time. “I like bonding over that kind of thing. Even though I may be feeling good right now, other people are dealing with their own shit and that’s valid. Our feelings are valid. Things are going to be okay. If you have to hole up in your room and rot away and not talk to anyone for however long, that’s fine. I’ve done that so many times. I still do that from time to time because it’s important to just be alone and process your own feelings.”
With Coachella and her growing follower base, she divulges that people often think her life is perfect. But she states blatantly that’s not true at all:. “I do nothing outside of this [performance.] I’m so grateful to be here, like ‘what the hell? This is your job. You get to perform,’ and that’s so much fun for me. I love doing that, I love connecting with people. But at the end of the day, I’m just a girl at home wearing sweats, hanging with her dog, going on hikes, doing hot yoga, doing all these things to help my mental space.” Sports are like therapy for her and have made her feel more comfortable in her own skin.
In high school, she used to wrestle (and she shared pictures of these in her music video for “cloud 11”). In the beginning of the year, she had been more into pickleball. “Now, my new thing is hot yoga,” she smiles indulgently. “I just love it, like it’s been so good for my mental state.”
She started doing hot yoga in preparation for her Coachella performance. “My choreographer was like, ‘I think it’d be really good for you to start hot yoga.’ I was kind of scared because I think going into any new territory is always scary. But I was like, ‘okay I think I’m going to grow from this. And Coachella is really hot, so the heat will help me. I’m preparing myself.’”
Thuy admits she’s been continuing it even after Coachella, because it was her time to sweat and be in tune with her body. She recommends everyone try it because it’s a “you thing. You do this by yourself. You take what you can. It is meditative for me. Like, once you get to a certain state of just being so exhausted from the heat, and then you’re in this pose, you’re holding it, and the instructors are guiding you through it all. It’s like you’re trusting in yourself, like, ‘you can do it.’ It helps a lot with mental toughness and balance.”
She still struggles with each class she takes, but she feels that her balance has improved overall. “If you live a lifestyle that’s fast-paced and you need some time to slow down, I would recommend hot yoga. You should try it, try everything.”
Thuy takes her own advice. In her quest to become a full-on performer, something she had made a goal a year ago, she’s added more intense dance choreos into her live shows. Although she’s doubled the amount of effort she puts into her performances, she shares humbly that she didn’t expect there to be so many people coming to listen to her. Especially being that this was her second in a row Head in the Clouds performance. She says, “At every show that I have, [after] I finish, I’m always like “okay, are people gonna want to come see me again?’”
Thuy recalls being shocked by the turnout for her performance, describing the overwhelming support she felt. “It’s always a shock to me when I see how many people showed up,” she says. “People were spilling out of the tent, and it was crazy. Right up until I got on stage, I asked my team member, ‘Hey, are there people out there?’ and he was like, ‘People are starting to show up.’ And I was like, ‘That means no one’s there.’” She explains that she had kept her expectations low, so the sight of the packed crowd was a powerful moment. “When I hopped on stage and I saw how many people were there, I was like, ‘Wow. My community really showed up for me.’ I’m grateful.”
The singer even journeyed to Vietnam with her dad for a show. “Doing international stuff is always stressful,” she prefaced. “Especially touring. But I was really appreciative once he was already there. Like, ‘this is really cool to share this moment with my dad.’” Her gratitude only deepened when her dad brought her uncles she hasn’t seen since she was 15. “They live in the village area of Vietnam, in the countryside. For them to come into the city to watch me perform, that was really cool.”
With more world tours, collaborations, and releases under her belt, Thuy declares that she’s been feeling less nervous these days. Although the nerves aren’t completely gone, she says she’s learned to focus on having fun. “I’m not nervous to prove who I am to people,” she explains. “I go on stage like, ‘That’s me. I’m going to go up there and do my thing. And if it’s not for you, it’s not for you.’ I think I stopped caring.”
“Live your life as if everything is rigged in your favor” was a quote her instructor at her yoga class had shared, and words she had kept close to her after hearing. Thuy believed she had always lived her life this way, even if she wasn’t explicitly aware of it. But hearing those words had validated everything she had been working towards.
She even referenced it on the team’s journey to New York from the west coast. They were almost late to catch their flight, but she told herself: “it’s fine, everything’s going to work out.” She admitted that although they were cutting it close, everything always works out. “You roll with the punches, and I think that’s where you can enjoy life a little bit more – because you’re not hung up on things that are out of your control,” she remarked.
What was in control, though, was the production of her songs on wings. She stays true to her R&B roots with songs like “whatchu gotta say” ft. Blxst, “crash & burn” and her title track: “wings” – -as well as her popular singles “hair down” and “cloud 11.” Yet, Thuy deliberately changes things up with songs “fairy godmother” and “D8”. These feel influenced by the hyper-pop sound pioneered by Charli xcx, and is equally reminiscent of fellow Bay Area artist, Lolo Zouai’s second album: PLAYGIRL, specifically the track “VHS.”
Even songs like “shy boy” and “roleplay” are a hair lighter than what Thuy typically releases. They feel blissfully harmonious and carefree, with elevated whispers that are close to falsetto.
The singer knows she can sound angelic, but she is trying to be more dynamic than ghat. It’s as though she feels beauty can only get her so far, and she wants to flesh out her identity as a singer by crafting music that is raw and real, rather than just pretty. “I’m experimenting with my voice, learning to use it in ways that I’ve never done before,” she shares. “But at the same time I want to play around with my voice more because I think that is the cool part about being an artist.”
Thuy has interest in trying different tones, such as a spoken word, rapping vibe— and different producers. She’s determined to push beyond what she’s already proven to the world. She’s more than a singer of her own precedence, but a dynamic artist. She describes wings as: “More of an elevated Thuy.”