- [Arthur] Think of your favorite genre of music.

Will people still know how to play it in 3,000 years?

And would anyone know if they were playing it wrong?

(Gaosong singing Kwv Txhiaj) (Tiffany singing in Lug Txaj) That's the situation facing practitioners of the ancient oral heritage of Hmong folk singing, once flourishing, but now fading from memory.

Originating thousands of years ago in China and migrating to Southeast Asia, the Hmong people brought their rich cultural practices to cities like Minneapolis and Saint Paul after the secret war of the 1960s and '70s.

Today we're focusing on the young Hmong artists who are breathing new life into this ancient genre.

(Gaosong singing Kwv Txhiaj) I'm meeting with Gaosong, an actress and singer residing here in Saint Paul.

I need your help.

Tell me how to pronounce the style in which you perform.

It's called.

- Kwv txhiaj.

- kwv txhiaj.

And Tiffany is a song poet who learned folk singing in her childhood.

- I sing the Hmong Green dialect, so the lug txaj.

- Lug txaj.

Kwv txhiaj or in the Green Hmong dialect, lug txaj, dates back for as long as the Hmong people can remember.

- [Tiffany] They would sing lug txaj at the Hmong New Year.

They would sing it for weddings.

Rather than lecturing at people and saying words, they use lug txaj to also educate.

They would have a singer, like a kwv txhiaj or lug txaj singer who would open up the new year, welcoming all the positive things like positive vibes.

- In a culture where it's seen as uncomfortable or disrespectful to speak directly about certain topics, song poetry allows people to communicate through song.

- It was used as a way for younger folks to kind of like connect and sort of like, you know, Tinder but back in the day.

In this case, it's not just like, "Hey, are you single?'

But it's actually something that they're singing for Hmong people, at least for my grandma, and how they would talk.

Like, they're not direct.

They wanna say no, like they don't say no directly, but they use a lot of complex kind of words and they might like put in metaphors to mean no.

- [Arthur] Whether it's two young single people courting one another and trying to see if they wanna start a relationship, or elders trying to give advice to newlyweds about their life together, (Tiffany singing in Lug Txaj) One topic that Hmong elders especially don't feel comfortable talking about directly is war.

(Tiffany singing in Lug Txaj) Art, like the Hmong's traditional tapestry, and folk singing are a way for this community to express their difficult experiences.

And this tradition hasn't gone away, even if many artists are choosing other genres to do it.

(Shong rapping in Hmong) Despite young Hmong musicians turning to Western genres, many are still interweaving their language, clothing, and other traditions into their work.

♪ Baby can't you see all the pain in my eyes, yeah ♪ ♪ Can't take your time thinking that it's all right, yeah ♪ ♪ Won't you be my Shorty ♪ (Supryze rapping in Hmong) - [Arthur] One thing that may make it difficult to preserve kwv txhiaj is its complexity.

Kwv txhiaj has a very specific form.

Some may say it's comparable to Shakespearean work.

- It's so complex and it's in the Hmong language, but a heightened form of the Hmong language called Paj Lug, which translates to flowery words.

- Some of the words that are used in lug txaj we don't use in our everyday language.

If they don't have that linguistic understanding or even of the structure, it's gonna be difficult to understand and also learn.

It's very similar to the traditional ballad.

So that's one structure that it's similar to.

There is a minimum of two stanzas.

They have rhyming couplets in there, along with like a refrain.

So certain lines are repeated in the stanza.

- As the stanza gets repeated, new words are interchanged for the rhyming scheme.

Hmong folk music is typically not written down or memorized, but singers are forced to create the song on the spot using a set of metaphors.

While lug txaj is not straight freestyle, it has similarities.

- Let's say, for example, I go to the New Year and there's like a suitor or a guy that kind of approaches me.

In that situation, he is introducing himself and he's singing his song, asking me questions, and while he's singing his song, I'm listening to his song and trying to come up with, okay, what am I gonna respond?

What am I gonna say?

(Tiffany singing in Lug Txaj) Like, do I like this guy?

That's kind of where the freestyling comes in.

(Tiffany singing in Lug Txaj) - [Arthur] Some individuals here in America have been working to learn and maintain the long tradition of song poetry.

(person singing in Lug Txaj) - My maternal grandma, so my (Tiffany speaking in Hmong) and all of her sisters, they come from a family of folk singers.

So they all sang lug txaj back in Laos.

I learned lug txaj when I was around five or six years old.

Like on the playground, I would sing it, like just say the words 'cause I loved it so much, and I remember this kid said to me, "Why do you sing those songs?

It's so fobby."

Like, that was the term that they used, like only old people sing it.

Then I was like, well, I don't really wanna sing anymore 'cause then then I'm not gonna have friends 'cause nobody my age likes to sing it.

I just grew to appreciate it again because it allowed me to connect with my grandma.

I sing it and I think of her and I feel like I'm connected to her sisters and you know, the ancestors who came before me.

- Totally.

- It's a connection piece.

- Right, yes.

- Totally (Gaosong singing opera warm-up) - When I was a kid, I wanted to be like a pop star, like Britney Spears, so I never really saw myself as being like a classical singer.

(Gaosong singing in German) I always heard kwv txhiaj in the home.

My mother is actually like a master kwv txhiaj singer.

When you're a kid, you hear it and it just sounds like noise.

(Gaosong singing Kwv Txhiaj) But as I continued studying classical music and learning more about my voice and who I am as a Hmong person, I realized that this art form is so beautiful.

(Gaosong singing Kwv Txhiaj) - Kwv txhiaj is a unique form of folk music and has so much to teach us about communicating as human beings.

- How you begin the Hmong song poetry indicates kind of the dialect that you speak, along with what country you're from, or what region, or what city.

(Tiffany singing in Lug Txaj) - My mom is from Wopeng, so I don't wanna mess it up.

- Okay.

(Gaosong singing in Lug Txaj) (Tiffany singing in Lug Txaj) (Gaosong singing Kwv Txhiaj) Yep, yeah, you can hold it out for however long you want to.

- Yeah (Gaosong laughing) (Tiffany singing Kwv Txhiaj) (Gaosong singing Kwv Txhiaj) - Yep, yeah, yep, yep.

You can add more.

We'll have to come up with one for Hmong Minnesota and Hmong Wisconsin and Hmong California.

(both laughing) - Honestly, I'm just mesmerized by the tone and the quality of your voice because it just sounds so like authentic.

- Thank you.

That means a lot to me.

I aspire to sound like the elders.

- Yeah, girl, you sound like the elders.

You sound like the elders.

- This art form and kwv txhiaj, Hmong flower singing, it's a form of like resilience.

(Tiffany singing in Lug Txaj) (Gaosong singing Kwv Txhiaj) - Musicians like Gaosong and Tiffany are keeping the practice alive.

They remind us of the importance of holding on to our traditions of telling stories through music.

(Gaosong speaking in Hmong) - They wear, is it the purple hats?

- I'm (Tiffany speaking in Hmong) and I don't even know.

That's why I'm like I'm gonna look to you to tell me.

(both laughing) I feel like we should have sat down and talked.

Like, I don't, yeah.

- It was good for singing.

(both laughing) - Yeah.

(tranquil music)