The Sound Behind Lê Khoa's Vietnam Idol Top 10: Producing "I Won't Give Up"
- May 11, 2025
- 3 min read
Updated: 2 days ago
Lê Khoa came to Vietnam Idol 2023 as a fully formed artist: an unusual voice, a bold gender-fluid image, a clear point of view, and the nerve to perform his own original English-language song on a show built around Vietnamese pop standards. He wrote "I Won't Give Up." My job was to give it a sound that could carry all of that onto national television.
I produced and mixed the record. We built it around electronic pop, ballroom, and house—a contemporary frame strong enough for a prime-time stage without smoothing away what made Khoa distinctive.
Khoa took that record to the Top 10 of Vietnam Idol 2023. And when the competition was over, he kept working with me. That choice, more than anything I could say about my own work, is the real measure of what the collaboration did for his sound.
I Won't Give Up · Lê Khoa. Written and performed by Lê Khoa; produced and mixed by Konstantin Nevelskiy, with additional production by Tworyde.
Project at a Glance
Artist, writer, performer: Lê Khoa
Producer and mixer: Konstantin Nevelskiy
Additional production: Tworyde
Result: Vietnam Idol 2023 Top 10; performed live to roughly 3,000 people in Phú Quốc
Partnership: Ongoing and contracted through 2028
Coverage: VietnamNet, Kenh14, and other national outlets
Watch the official "I Won't Give Up" video.
What Khoa Brought
The point of this collaboration was never to make Lê Khoa more conventional. His high vocal range, his fashion and movement, his theatrical delivery, and his willingness to stand on a national stage as himself were already his strongest assets.
He also wrote the song. Its message—perseverance, self-acceptance, and pride in a Vietnamese identity, with the idea that music should have no prejudice, limits, or borders—is his.
A producer who tries to override that kind of clarity usually weakens it. My job was to give it a sound.
Finding the Sound Lê Khoa Vietnam Idol
That is the part of the work Khoa points to, and it is the part I care most about.
He arrived with the song and his identity. What the record did not yet have was a sonic language that matched them—something contemporary and international, built for a stage and a broadcast, that still belonged unmistakably to him.
I built that language. Electronic pop gave the track immediacy. House gave it physical movement, the kind an audience feels in a room. Ballroom elements connected to Khoa's stage identity. The arrangement and mix were shaped to read clearly through broadcast audio and to put his voice and performance in front, never in competition with the production. Tworyde contributed additional production on the track; the sound direction, arrangement, and mix are mine. Lê Khoa Vietnam Idol
VietnamNet described the finished song as combining electronic pop, ballroom, and house. That was the target: a record that felt like the rest of the world without cutting Khoa off from where he comes from.
The Result, and Who Reported It
"I Won't Give Up" did its job on the biggest stage available to it.
Khoa performed it live in Phú Quốc to an audience of about 3,000 and reached the show's Top 10—a rare outcome for a contestant presenting original English-language material. Kenh14 covered the performance and quoted the song's message that music should carry no prejudice, limits, or borders.
After the competition, the official video extended the project's life, and VietnamNet reported the release. These are independent outlets describing the same result: a Top 10 placement, national visibility, and press coverage for an original record.
Why the Collaboration Continued
A single successful track can be a coincidence. A continuing partnership is a decision.
After Vietnam Idol, Khoa did not go looking for a different sound. He kept building the one we had started, across further releases including "Nobody Like You" and "All Killer No Filler." Our collaboration is ongoing and now contracted through 2028—the clearest sign of what the work has meant to him.
The through-line across all of it is the sound we found on "I Won't Give Up."
The Artist's Perspective
Khoa describes it in his own words:
"Since 2023 Nevelskiy has been my music producer and creative partner. His production has given my material a polished, contemporary sound that aligns with current Western pop and electronic trends, enabling me to reach a broader U.S. and international audience and secure a Top-10 placement during my televised Vietnam Idol 2023 appearances."
I include it because the value of production is usually invisible from the outside. The clearest evidence that it mattered is the artist choosing to build his career on it—and saying so.
Khoa brought the voice, the message, and the courage to stand on national television as himself. I gave that a sound. Vietnam Idol supplied the platform. What happened next is the reason we are still working together.
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