I’M premiering the music video for Lori Hantu, the first single off my upcoming album John Bangi Blues, on an online music show at 10pm today and my YouTube channel this weekend. I’ll also have a livestreamed show on Facebook at 9pm, right before the premiere.

The video is another collaboration with one of my film degree students – part of an ongoing personal initiative to creatively engage film students, filmmakers and artistes – and was shot just before the movement-control order (MCO) began. I chose this weekend for the debut because pre-coronavirus and MCO, the album had been scheduled to be launched tomorrow at Merdekarya.

I woke up yesterday to news of the communications and multimedia minister telling Parliament that all “film producers” need to have a licence from Finas, or the National Film Development Corporation. Nevertheless, I’m going ahead with my plans; I’m an independent artiste, and this initiative is non-commercial and won’t bring me riches. The latest episode is further proof of how the arts are just a bargaining chip for people in power who seek to curtail differing opinions and dissent – essential elements in any democracy.

I’m a one-man operation: artiste, manager, publicist, webmaster, roadie, road manager, A&R, producer, driver, label owner and executive producer for my videos. This has been my modus operandi since day one, when I started composing, recording (primitively), performing and producing albums in the late 1990s.

It dawned on me early on that with the type of music I make and enjoy making, it wouldn’t be sensible to pursue music full-time as I have principles (artistic and personal) that I will not break. I don’t endorse commercial products (like most mainstream artistes do, because they probably don’t make much money from their “art” to begin with). Personally, I believe that it’s incompatible to be both a “product endorser” and an artiste – it is ethically wrong to associate your artistic reputation with an item that has absolutely nothing to do with it. What does a singer know about water filters?

So, multitask (yes, my gender is terrible at it, but I try my best) I must on the path I’ve chosen. And as the saying goes, when it rains, it pours. It has literally been pouring in my neck of the woods (neighbouring Kajang saw its worst flooding in decades last weekend) when the demands from all my vocations suddenly converged in the same week.

On the academic side, we’re wrapping up the semester with the unsexy work of collecting student assessments, grades and reports for external examiners to scrutinise, and I’m involved in several research projects on Malaysia’s independent music community. I’m also preparing documents for the new semester next month, good grief. Then, there are deadlines at month-end for my recent appointment as an industry adviser to the independent music sector of Cendana, or the Cultural Economy Development Agency.

It has been a flurry of activity on the musical front, too. I did my first “new normal” livestreamed show last Friday at the newly opened Tun Perak Co-op for the opening of an exhibition (my first foray into downtown Kuala Lumpur since the MCO), and on Tuesday was the monthly public singer-songwriter performance at Publika, which has been turned into a livestreamed event as well.

Between all this, I was corresponding online with my good friend and fellow singer-songwriter Ariff Akhir, a co-producer on my new album, and my Sabahan film student directing the music video. Add to the mix babysitting/parenting my 4-year-old twins while my wife is at work (I’m working from home this Covid-19 season), but luckily (and gratefully), we live with my parents, brother and mother-in-law, so we have a support system.

As the average citizen today listens to music online, most may think that all musicians would love to get their songs on popular apps like Spotify, but the reality is that such platforms have taken away the value of music in the way we used to consume it. Albums are supposedly being shown the door in favour of singles, as listeners have an increasingly short attention span. A friend once innocently remarked that it must be on my bucket list to get my music on Spotify and such, but this is far from the truth; I put my songs there, hesitantly, because, well, if I want my music to be accessible to the younger generation, who have never even seen a cassette, I have to do it. It’s a necessary evil.

Remember Myspace? There’s no guarantee that these things will be around or stay relevant for long. The majority of independent musicians in Malaysia don’t earn much from plays on apps, and if you want to gain traction on other social media platforms like YouTube, you’ll need to conform to popular tastes and trends to grab people’s attention – the “attention economy”, as it’s known. The internet isn’t as “free” as it used to be, but it’s now the front line for artistes to engage the public in the new normal. We’re figuring out how to earn, and to sustain our works.

The last thing we need is more bureaucratic and political meddling. But for eclectic (I use this term sparingly) artistes like myself who do what they want and say what needs to be said, the way they want to say it, the slice of the pie is hardly a slice, and more like the sprinkling of icing sugar on top. Maybe, they’ll cancel the sugar next. If that happens, we’ll just need to find a different pie. – July 24, 2020.

* Azmyl Yunor is a touring underground recording artiste, and an academic in media and cultural studies. He has published articles on pop culture, subcultures and Malaysian cultural politics. He adheres to the three-chords-and-the-truth school of songwriting, and Woody Guthrie’s maxim “All you can write is what you see”. He is @azmyl on Twitter.

* This is the opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insight. Article may be edited for brevity and clarity.