essiee Is Writing Love Letters to Vietnam in a Language That Isn't His Own

A Kid, A Cassette, And Bryan Adams

There's a version of every songwriter's origin story that gets told at award shows. This isn't that.

essiee got here two ways. First, Googoosh — the Iranian icon whose voice, he says, "woke me up to melody as a child" back in Iran. That's the spark. The melody in his bones.

Then came the homework nobody assigns on purpose. His mom loved Western music, so young essiee got put to work writing out all the English lyrics to her favorite songs. "Have You Ever Really Loved a Woman" by Bryan Adams is, in his words, forever embedded in his brain. Torture at the time. A crash course in songwriting in hindsight. You want to learn how a lyric is built? Transcribe it by hand until you hate it, then realize you understand it.

So you've got Persian melody and a forced apprenticeship in English pop structure. Where does a guy like that end up?

Writing in Vietnamese.

The Outsider Making Sense Of A Place He Loves

Let's not skip past how strange and beautiful that is. essiee is Iranian Canadian, and he's writing his music into the Vietnamese language. Not sampling it. Not featuring on a track. Writing into it.

That's the whole thing you need to understand about him, and it's exactly what he wants you to feel: "That I'm an outsider making sense of a place I love."

Most artists chase authenticity by staying in their lane. essiee did the opposite. He walked into a language and a culture that isn't his by birth, and instead of tiptoeing, he decided to write from the inside of the feeling. That takes nerve. It also takes respect — the kind you can hear when someone's paying real attention instead of borrowing a vibe for clout.

He's not pretending to be from there. He's an outsider, and he says so plainly. That honesty is the reason it lands instead of feeling like costume.

"Không Khó Đâu" — Resilience After Loss

The song this feature is about is "Không Khó Đâu." essiee keeps the story behind it short and heavy: resilience in the face of loss. A lesson, he says, that finds us all.

That's it. He didn't dress it up. And honestly, that restraint tells you more than a paragraph of backstory would. Loss doesn't need a press release. It needs a melody you can lean on when you're not okay, and that's what he built.

Go listen with that in mind. Pull it up on Spotify and let the tone do the talking.

Three Kids And Stolen Minutes

Here's the part working artists will feel in their chest. Ask essiee the biggest thing he's had to overcome to keep making music, and the answer isn't industry gatekeepers or algorithms.

It's time.

He's a father of three. He's managing an entire life. And the music happens wherever he can sneak it in. "Wherever I can sneak in some time, I take it."

No studio-hermit fantasy. No 12-hour sessions. Just a dad carving songs out of the margins of a full day, over and over, because the alternative — not making it — isn't an option for him. If you've ever tried to finish a verse between responsibilities that don't care about your art, you already respect this man.

What's Next

He's not slowing down. "Chén Độc" drops this week — and he's flagging it as a dark one. His words: "pour yourself a glass."

So take him up on it. Sit with "Không Khó Đâu," then be around when the darker one lands.

Follow essiee here:

• Spotify
• Instagram
• TikTok
• YouTube

An Iranian Canadian father of three, writing resilience into a language he chose out of love, in the minutes life leaves him. That's not a gimmick. That's a whole person. Go hear it.