Vietnam's 'Queen of Rap' Suboi Gushes About President Obama, Dishes on Hip-Hop Scene

— -- It was the last question President Obama was going take before concluding his historic three-day visit to America’s one-time foe, Vietnam.

The president was addressing convention hall full of Ho Chi Minh City’s most promising young leaders and was probably not expecting to beatbox in front of the crowd.

Suboi, 26, dubbed by some as Vietnam’s "Queen of Rap,” had not heard the president address a subject close to her heart: the role art and culture plays in the development of a nation.

As her hand shot up, it caught the president’s eye.

“I’m a rapper here from Saigon, Vietnam,” she said, and before long she was spitting verse to the president and the world.

“I might have looked very calm but I wasn’t,” Suboi told ABC News' Bob Woodruff shortly after her session with the president.

ABC News met up Suboi at the Saigon Saigon Bar at the legendary Caravelle Hotel, which used to house ABC News' Vietnam War-era bureau. Suboi, whose real name is Hàng Lâm Trang Anh, opened up about being a rapper and part of the new Vietnam generation. Nearly 70 percent of the population in Vietnam was born after 1975, the end of the war.

“I want to raise the awareness of the Vietnamese artists and people,” Suboi said. “I feel there is wall between what Vietnamese people and people on the outside. They really have no idea what Vietnamese people are like, especially this young generation.”

Throughout his visit to Vietnam, Obama has been speaking out the importance the freedom of expression in order to keep a country innovating, especially in a country like Vietnam, where the Communist government frequently silences its critics.

Obama responded, “Imagine if at the time that rap was starting off that the government had said, 'No, because some of the things you say are offensive' or 'some of the lyrics are rude' or 'you’re cursing too much.'"

“That connection that we've seen now in hip-hop culture around the world wouldn’t exist. So, you’ve got to let people express themselves," Obama said.

“He is so down to earth,” Suboi said of Obama. ”You can see the most powerful man there ... and let the young generation ask him questions and he answers himself. We don’t usually see this in Vietnam.”