When Vietnamese American R&B artist thuy released her first song “Hands on Me” in 2015, she was still studying medicine, guided by her immigrant parents’ wishes for her to become a doctor. After the song won a local radio contest, she began envisioning a full-fledged career as a musician. Nine years later, she has built a devoted, ever-expanding fanbase of over five million monthly listeners—thanks in part to her and her team’s utilization of Spotify for Artists tools to reach new audiences. thuy sits down with the streaming service for their video series How They Made It to talk about her career path and what it means to represent Vietnamese Americans in the music industry.

“They come up to me and they tell me how proud they are of me, and they call me chị hai, which is like, ‘older sister,’” thuy says of interacting with fans during shows, stifling tears. “It’s really cool to be that for them, because I just wish I had that growing up.”

In a supplementary deep dive into the musician’s marketing strategies, thuy’s manager Anh Vu and Isobel Kelly, Global Head of Streaming at Venice Music, discuss the different techniques used to bolster and reinforce audience engagement with her music. From promoting recent releases with the “Marquee” tool to highlighting back catalog tracks with “Discovery Mode,” thuy keeps fans in the loop while introducing herself to a broader spectrum of listeners.